


The Rhythm of a Metronome

by thingsishouldntbedoing



Series: The Symphony of Two Thousand Years [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College AU, M/M, Reincarnation, This is going to be a fun ride. Hang on tight, hey look I did it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:16:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 61,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsishouldntbedoing/pseuds/thingsishouldntbedoing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren Jaeger is a twenty-something college student that dreams of mile high walls and man-eating beasts. Convinced his dreams are real Eren begins a search for anything connected to his nightmares, clues that could lead him to the man whose face he can't remember, to someone that remembers what he does... and so he begins a desperate search for all those people he once held dear with the help of a man he probably shouldn’t trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two years later.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few notes! Thanks so much for giving this a chance I've been really nervous about writing a college AU!
> 
> THERE IS NOW A COMPANION JEARMIN FIC. [The Sound of a Second](http://archiveofourown.org/works/989585)
> 
> AGES:
> 
> The 104th are all 20-24. Levi holds his "canon" age of 34. Other ages will be introduced as time goes on. 
> 
> TUMBLR: thingsishouldntbedoing.tumblr.com
> 
> TRACKING: fic: metronome, thingsishouldntbedoing

He’s had nightmares since he was a child. His parents would laugh, brush him off, tell him it was nothing. He could remember it all… moments when he thought he’d die… moments when he watched others die. He grew up that way, always mentioning it… hoping that someone else would remember it. Someone else would know what he was talking about. 

_It’s just a dream._ They’d say. 

Was it really? It felt too damned real to be a dream. 

Was he crazy? 

That’s a possibility in and of itself. 

Eventually he’d learned to stop talking about it. Stop suggesting that something gruesome and horrible before the history books had occurred… something so horrifying that they had wiped out all memory of it... 

It’s been almost two years since he’d last had a nightmare, not that he doesn’t try to sort through the fractured remnants in his head anyway when he has time. 

_Two years._

He swears he can still hear them screaming when he closes his eyes, when it’s quiet in his apartment and all he can hear is the whirring of the fans in the Boston summer heat… he can hear them saying his name. 

_“Eren! Make a choice!”_ His voice echoes. The man whose face he can’t remember. 

Music brings him out of his reverie, the sound of his alarm going off in the pale morning. He sat up and ran his fingers through his messy brown hair, head aching. Why now? It'd been a while since he’s had those nightmares. He sauntered into the bathroom and was halfway through brushing his tongue when-- “Oh shit!” He glanced at the time in the mirror and spit out his toothpaste. “Fuck! Shit!” He staggered into his jeans, snatching a hoodie before throwing his bag over his shoulder. He tripped over his shoes going up the landing of the apartment to the door, grabbing those as he threw open his door. _Well didn’t lock that one Jaeger._ He chuckled, hopping as he put his shoe on. 

“I could hear you from out here,” he heard a deep voice say. 

“Oh shit sorry!” Eren apologized as quickly as he could, glancing up as he stomped his foot into his boot. The apartment across the hall belonged to a man with dark hair and smouldering grey eyes. This morning he was in his shirt sleeves, forearms exposed, and Eren swallowed at the flex of his muscles as he tapped his newspaper on his sleeve. He had only seen him a few times, Eren was sure he’d lived there before he moved in, but their schedules were completely different. It was a rare day that they met in the hallway this way. 

“You should be, _brat_.” The word hit him hard and sent him reeling, deja vu washed over him and it was all he could do to murmur another apology, stomp his foot into his other boot, and sprint down the stairs under the watchful eyes of his neighbor. _What the hell was that?_

“Eren!” Armin’s voice sounded relieved as he threw himself into the car. 

“Jesus Christ Eren what the hell were you doing? We called you ten times!” Mikasa said angrily. 

“I know I know!” He jerked his hoodie on, chilled from his brief run in the open air. “Go! Just go!” He wrestled with his backpack, throwing it off to the side as Mikasa drove off. “Damn it guys you should have just let me take the T!” 

“It’s fine don’t worry about it,” she consoled. Her long hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, sweatshirt sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She's so different from the Mikasa in his dreams. This Mikasa smiled and laughed… the carefree girl she always should have been. She had the same black silk hair. The same grey eyes. The same voice. Yet everything had changed. 

“Earth to Eren?” Armin’s voice swam into his senses. “Geez did you have another nightmare last night?” He placed his hand on his forehead to check his temperature. 

“No damn!” He waved his hand away. “I just…” He stilled. “Yeah… I did…” 

“Really? Eren it’s been such a long time!” Mikasa said from the front seat. “I think it’s time you saw someone about those nightmares! Giants eating people is kind of weird.” 

“Titans. They’re called Titans Mikasa,” he gestured. “They’re like… huge! Bigger than skyscrapers!” 

“You’ve got some imagination,” his sister told him fondly. 

“I’m telling you Mikasa it happened! I was crushed under a building and…” He could still feel the tightness in his chest… the numbness of his evisceration. 

“I’m going to drop you two off and I’ll see you at lunch, my class isn’t until 11.” 

“Okay thanks, sis,” Eren kissed her cheek as Armin threw himself out of the car. “We’re so fucking late…” He checked his phone. 10:13. “I’m so sorry Armin!” He grabbed his friend’s bag off the ground before he could slow to pick it up and threw it over his shoulder. 

“It’s fine don’t worry about it!” Armin pushed his long hair back from his face and followed, laughing as they ran across the quad. 

They hustled into the classroom, professor’s voice already projecting onto the half sleeping class as they sidled into the farthest row they could at the top of the lecture hall, giggling as Eren threw Armin’s bag to him. “So did you really have another dream?” Armin whispered as they settled in, Eren slipping out his iPad to do anything _but_ take notes. 

“Yeah I did… this time I was in a forest and we were on horses… We were… being chased by someone…” He chewed his fingernail thoughtfully. “By a titan… but she wasn’t like the other titans… she was a shifter like me.” 

“Really? So there were others like you?” Armin asked with awe. “Wait I… I think you said something like that once…” 

“Yeah there were a few others… another woman and two men,” Eren muttered. “But we were all running from this titan and I was all ready to fight her and…” 

“That guy was there wasn’t he?” 

“He’s always there, Armin, he’s everywhere.” He grit his teeth. “I wish I could find him…” 

“I had a dream last night too, Eren, that’s… why I joked about it…” Armin told him and his best friend looked over with wide eyes. This Armin was different from the one in his dreams too. He may have looked the same, though sometimes the one in his dreams was younger and softer than his Armin, but he was by no means the same person all the way through. This Armin was confident, assured in his decisions, the way that Dream Armin hadn’t been at first. This Armin had shoulder length blonde hair and a ponytail… this Armin could kick his ass if he wanted to. 

Both Armins understood him in ways he couldn’t quite grasp, “What did you dream about?” 

“I dreamt that I was watching Mikasa and another boy try to lead a titan somewhere. I know I gave the order… I said that they should try to guide it… I don’t know why it… it was fighting others… hurting them…” Armin said softly and Eren’s heart leapt. 

“With… with long black hair? And it wasn’t fat like the others?” Eren’s green eyes were bright with fire as Armin nodded. “Armin that was me!” He said a little louder than he meant to and several students turned to look at them. “That was me!” He said more quietly than before. 

“Nuh uh… Eren we can’t have the same dreams! This is too freaky!” 

“I’m telling you it’s not a dream… this stuff really happened… I can remember it… almost all of it…” He heard someone shush him and he hissed back. “I…” 

“The first dream I ever had was when we were kids you know? Remember when I told you about it?” 

“You said I was missing limbs… I remember that, that’s the first time I--” 

“Would you two shut up?” Someone in the row in front of them crabbed and Eren quieted down, hunkering down on his iPad as Armin laughed silently. 

All of this was too weird… after two years of no dreams and then… 

\--- 

They didn’t talk about it the rest of the day, distracted by bigger and better things like movies and television and friends, but it weighed heavily on Eren’s mind as he stopped at the elevator. 

“It’s out again,” a voice told him. Eren looked over and felt his heart jump. Him. 

“Well this is a first… I’ve never seen you twice in one day before,” Eren said as they started to climb. 

“I had a lazy day,” he hummed as he flipped through his mail. “Horse shit…” He muttered. 

“Man I hate junk mail, I never check my mail anymore… the last lady that lived here got knitting magazines so I’m thinking about taking that up lately,” he joked a little nervously and earned a ‘hmph’. _Geez this guy’s a sourpuss._

“We don’t have to talk as we walk you know? It can just be quiet,” he looked over at him with stormy eyes and Eren dismissed whatever familiarity he had with them. 

“Are you a cop?” Eren asked curiously and his neighbor snorted again. 

“Why? Been doping up across the hall?” 

“No, I just wondered… you keep weird hours.” 

“Been watching me, brat?” There it was again, why was that so familiar? Eren wracked his brain. 

“Well I keep weird hours so I just… I see your lights on sometimes when I come home is all…” Eren swallowed and the man made a noise of acquittal. 

“So you’re nosy,” he hummed. 

“I…” They were only passing the fourth floor. Four more floors to go. 

“Don’t worry about it, congrats on the scholarship by the way,” he told him. 

“Oh thanks! Yeah it was a big surprise that my research proposal got a grant…” 

“You’re a psychology student I take it?” 

“Neurology is what I’m most interested in but yeah sorta,” It didn’t occur to him that he should ask how this man knew all that. 

“Neurology, that’s a tough field… what made you want to do that?” 

“I… have these dreams…” What the hell, it wasn’t like they were going to have another conversation ever again. 

“Dreams? Well everybody has dreams, you should be more specific.” 

“I-I was going to!” 

“Well hurry up we’re on the sixth,” he gestured and Eren huffed. 

“I-I have these weird dreams and I think they’re connected to something but I’m not sure what… I’ve been having the same ones all my life… well the same but different. They’re all within the same lifetime or the same place? It’s really weird there’s… all kinds of crazy things going on and…” 

“What happens in them?” He asked, starting to sound a little interested. 

“It’s crazy!” Eren gestured, adjusting his backpack to his other shoulder. “There are these huge monsters called _titans_ and--” he could have sworn he’d seen a flash of recognition in those heavy-lidded eyes. “--And… well they… they eat people!” 

“Whoa! I think you must be lighting up over there, you’re pretty nutty.” He stopped at the top of the stairs and it was the first time Eren could tell the difference in their height. He had never noticed before that he was a head taller than his neighbor, not that it mattered… he held himself to well it was hardly noticeable. “Well it was certainly interesting hearing about your dreams Eren Jaeger.” He told him. “I hope you find the answers you’re looking for one day.” He turned to head back to his apartment. 

“Yeah… I’m sure I will.” _Another of the same reaction… as if I expected any different._ Then-- “H-Hey! What… what’s your name?” Eren asked and turned to follow him. 

“My name? It’s Levi, don’t come out of your house yelling tomorrow morning or I’ll end you, Jaeger.” He shut his door with a snap and Eren was left feeling distinctly scolded… and empty. 

“Huh…” He listened to the echoes of the traffic outside for a moment before walking into his own apartment… lost in thought. 

He worked through his headache, eating cold pizza and drinking beer, as if that would help the headache. Between lab reports he managed a few texts with Armin, remembering the conversation they’d started that morning but his best friend was almost as busy as he was. 

Then his thoughts drifted to his mysterious neighbor… the man across the hall whose eyes had glittered at the mention of _titans. I know that’s what I saw_ … It seemed so familiar, the glint in his eyes and the smirk that pulled at the hard line of his lips. 

Then it occurred to him. 

The banging drove Levi off his soft leather couch and onto his feet. _What the hell is going on out there?_ He didn’t know anybody that would possibly be crazy enough to bother him at this hour of the night. “What do you want shitlicker? It’s midnight.” 

“How did you know my name?” The brown haired boy demanded. 

He _smirked_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title for this story was inspired by the song "Guts" by All Time Low, chapter titles also often come from songs I'll list them here at the end
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


	2. Just like a bad joke.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which boundaries are crossed and Eren is far too relaxed about stranger danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote you another chapter today. Because I am completely and utterly in love with this story. Enyoy.

He _smirked_. 

“Tell me! How did you know my name?” Eren said again, half drunk and wondering why in the hell this was bothering him so much. 

“I asked the super when you moved in …” He told him as he took a sip of the wine in his fingers. 

“He--” Eren couldn’t even get another word out, feeling deflated. _I was so close_ … He could almost feel the rough fabric of his mantle slipping between his fingers. For a moment he had hoped… 

“Is that all? I’ve got work to do,” Levi asked critically. 

“H-How did you know that I’m a psych major?” Eren asked next, trying to keep his eyes from traveling down the curve of his throat. 

“I have everybody in the building on Google Alert.” 

“Is that even legal?” 

“It is until someone tells me it’s not,” he sipped his wine again. “Listen, brat, I’ve got things to do so if that’s all...” 

“So you… you keep tabs on people?” 

“Something like that, look if we’re going to talk would you come inside? I’m tired of the whole building hearing our conversation,” Levi gestured. 

“No I… I need to get to bed… sorry… sorry to bother you...” Eren stepped on his sweatpants and Levi’s eyebrows quirked up in interest at the swell of his hip now exposed over the band of his pants. _What a weird kid_ … He mused as the brunette looked at him over his shoulder before shutting his door. 

“Titans, huh?” He rolled the word on his tongue as he turned back into his house. He liked the way it sounded, the way it felt. It made his blood warm and his muscles tense. _Titans_. He finished the last of the wine in his glass and watched his shadow move on the wall, cast tall in the dim light. “I wonder what those are like…” 

\--- 

“ _This world is cruel_ ,” Mikasa voice swam in his head as his fist made contact. The female titan fell and anger filled his chest. 

“Get back up! Get the hell back up bitch!” He reached for her, letting out a shout. “YOU’VE HURT TOO MANY PEOPLE FOR IT TO BE THAT EASY!” The pain woke him, shuddering through the bones in his hand. “Huh?” He was staring at the wall of his apartment and everything was quiet. _Quiet_. No female titan. No buildings. No walls. He drew his hand back and looked at his bloodied knuckles. _Am I becoming violent?_ Sure he’d been in his fair share of fights in high school (Mikasa called him a punk) but it had been a long time since he’d actually hit anything… plus: “It’s a dream.” He murmured, looking down at his sweatpants. _When did I get out of bed?_

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

“SHIT! What the fuck?” Eren took a fighting stance only to see someone sitting on his couch drinking coffee. 

“You don’t have to be so goddamned loud ass clown,” Levi rubbed his temple tiredly. 

“The fuck are you doing in my apartment?” He dropped his hands. 

“I heard yelling and the super was too chickenshit to come check on you,” he replied. “You sure are fucking noisy, brat.” 

_Was I… yelling_? He wondered. “Yelling?” 

“You fucking woke me up you were so loud, I’m surprised above and below didn’t come ream your ass.” He looked oddly relaxed for being in a stranger’s apartment, collar open and knees four miles apart. 

“Wh-What was I saying?” 

“Kill them all,” the answer came quickly and Eren's blood ran cold. 

"Really?" He said at barely a whisper. 

"That and a lot of other stuff, you've got one hell of a problem," he sipped his coffee. “Just now you were yelling at someone about how they were a ‘bitch’. It was starting to get interesting.” 

"Hey! Is that my coffee mug? How long have you been in here!" 

"You didn't seem to mind." 

"I was asleep!" Eren gave a strangled cry. 

"Well that's true." 

"How did you even get in here?" 

"Locking the door often dissuades intruders, genius." 

"Fuck," he watched the smirk pull at the corner of Levi’s mouth before he rose from the couch and walked into the kitchen. 

"Coffee?" Levi offered, pouring a cup for him out of his own coffee pot. 

"Sure..." Eren sighed. He was too tired to worry about it anymore. "So if you came in to see if I was murdering someone why didn't you leave once you saw I was okay?" 

"Ah... Well there's the problem..." He hummed. "In my hurry to help my hapless neighbor I managed to lock myself out. The super is coming to let me in." Somehow Eren didn't believe him, it seemed out of character for someone like this... then again he barely knew the guy. 

"Creamer?" 

"In the fridge but then again you might already know that." 

"I might," he said cryptically. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to take drinks from strangers?" 

"Didn't _anybody_ ever tell you that _breaking and entering is a crime_?" 

"I didn't break. Only entered." He said as he handed the mug over. 

"Well that makes it okay then..." Eren muttered. 

"If you wanted me out of here you wouldn't be half naked having a conversation with me." Eren supposed that was true. There didn't seem to be anything threatening about him... “Do you have a first aid kit? Your hand is bleeding.” 

“Oh…” Eren looked down thoughtfully. “Yeah there’s one in the bathroom. I’ll get it.” He wandered off, feeling the burn of eyes on his back. Something odd was going on here… he’d lived in these apartments for six months and for all that time he’d only caught glimpses of this man and now he was in his living room? Drinking his coffee? 

Levi flipped through the notebooks on the desk in the corner of the living room, scanning the pages and pages of genetic recombinations and complex equations. _Kid’s smarter than he lets on._

He honestly _had_ heard him yelling, screaming in fact, and it had absolutely terrified him. It’d been a long time since he’d heard someone in so much distress... but he wasn’t sure that’s what made him check on him. Something about the kid’s words the night before had stirred something in him. Or maybe it was the fire in those beautiful turquoise eyes or the way his actions became more animated as he spoke of his dreams. None of the reasons seemed to fit quite right. 

_Some people have dreams of being rich or fucking beautiful women but this kid dreams about man eating monsters…_ He paused as Eren entered the room again. _At least I get some kind of reward for being a good samaritan._ He watched the boy falter under his gaze, tracing the cut of his hip with his eyes and memorizing the way his flat stomach rose and fell with each breath. 

“Got it? Come here and I’ll fix your hand,” he gestured and Eren walked closer _almost_ shyly. “Step on those sweatpants again and I’ll have to pay you for your services.” He enjoyed the way Eren’s eyes sparkled. 

“Hey! I can wear what I want in my own home!” Eren rebuffed him and followed his neighbor into the kitchen to let him rinse his knuckles before dabbing antiseptic on them. “I still… can’t figure you out.” 

“Good.” He wrapped his knuckles in gauze, thumbs brushing the back of his hand gently. “Keep this clean… if it’s possible.” He cast a judgemental eye around Eren’s apartment. 

“You can’t just come in here and glare around at my stuff okay?” Eren told him as he took his hand back, examining the trappings. 

“Lock your door, brat,” he set the coffee cup down and headed for the door. “I’ve got work to do, try to keep it down,” Eren watched him go, watched the way he glanced over his shoulder once more before the door snapped shut behind him. Eren had the distinct feeling this wouldn’t be the last time he woke up to find his neighbor in his apartment. 

\--- 

“So you’re going to start locking your door right?” Armin asked as he measured out an unknown compound, goggles comfortable against his cheeks. “I mean… Eren you can’t just have strangers coming into your house…” 

“Yeah thanks for that, I’ll try to remember that the next time a crazy guy watches me sleep.” Eren tapped the powder into distilled water and waited patiently for it to dissolve. “Last night was so weird…” 

“You know standing there talking to a stranger in your apartment doesn’t show very good judgement, he could have hurt you,” Armin told him seriously, “and don’t argue with me you know for a good portion of the time he was there you were obviously prostrate in bed. He made _coffee_.” 

“Armin it’s fine nothing happened.” 

“That’s not the point Eren! The point is that you leave your door unlocked all the time and invite unwanted strangers in.” 

“Armin why are you freaking out about this?” 

“You just told me a stranger watched you sleep and made you coffee! How else should I react? You’re not the Eren in your dreams! You can’t turn into a titan or fly around on maneuver gears!” The words slipped out of his mouth as if they belonged there and Eren’s lips parted. 

The lab went silent, everyone waiting for the next answer and Eren desperately wanted to tell them all off. He searched his best friend’s blue eyes, so familiar, every shift in color and subtle change in dilation… then he smiled. “Alright yeah you’re right… I mean he wasn’t bad but that doesn’t mean someone else might not be.” 

Armin let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, “Jesus you’re stubborn… you have to think about stuff before you do it.” 

“I know…” He sighed. 

“You say that but I get the feeling you’ve tuned me out,” Armin muttered. He was starting to worry about his best friend. Eren’s two years of peace had left him almost forgetting about all this… about the world he visited when he slept. Armin had been relieved, sometimes the memories had driven Eren to tears… the emotions were so real for him. It hurt to think that something as simple as a dream could harm Eren so deeply, cut him down to the bone and lay him low. 

“It’s fine…” Eren’s eyes were faraway and Armin was tempted to pour HCl over his hand. 

The trip to lunch was a cheerful one and Eren seemed to brighten even more when Mikasa joined them... but her reaction to his story wasn’t much different than Armin’s except for-- “I’ll KILL him!” She made to stand up and Eren caught her wrist. 

“Hey calm down! It wasn’t a big deal!” 

“That short guy’s gone too far! Walking into your apartment! I’m going to--” 

“You’re not going to do anything it’s fine! He was just worried about me because I was dreaming again!” 

“I’m sleeping at your house tonight, Eren, I don’t give a shit what you have to say. I can’t believe you’d just blow this off!” Her silver eyes were fierce and protective, like a mother bear. 

“ _No_ it’s fine!” Eren pulled her back down. “Seriously it’s not a big deal I… I mean he needs to learn some boundaries but it didn’t hurt anybody… it was all a weird misunderstanding.” 

“You are being so casual about this Eren… what’s going on?” 

“His voice… is really familiar…” He muttered. “I haven’t been able to put my finger on it but… I feel like I’ve met him before and he… there’s nothing threatening about him…” He stared his sandwich down. 

“Do you think he’s someone from your dreams? Like me and Mikasa?” Armin suggested and Eren shook his head. 

“No I… I don’t remember him. But I think he can help me.” 

“Help you?” Mikasa frowned even further. 

“Yeah I think…” A smile pulled at his lips and his face relaxed. “Or at least he’s given me an idea!” 

“This sounds dangerous…” Armin muttered. 

\--- 

It probably was, honestly, as Eren ruffled through his notebooks to find one that wasn’t completely written in. He snatched a pen and shoved it in his mouth as he rifled through the pages of one and found it satisfactorily empty. _Alright now think._ He stared at the empty page before taking a swig of beer. _Think about them… about their names and faces…_ He scratched a spiral into the paper as he sought out every scrap of information his brain had ever stored. It was like trying to hold water: you knew it was there and that if you clenched your hands just right the liquid would stay put but it was impossible to keep drops from slipping through the cracks. 

“Christ! What the hell am I supposed to do?” He threw his pen down and sat back on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table. The fan above him whirled in lazy circles, creaking softly in the heat of the apartment. He lost himself in it, eyes drifting closed. _Think, Eren._ He saw flashes, quick glimpses at dreams of his past. What he needed was a trigger. 

Something to bring them back on command. 

The creaking grew louder. 

If only he could draw up a detail that would help. He took deep breaths, lulling himself as the pictures became more clear. Like screenshots each fragment came with sounds and familiar smells, each voice recalled harder days and longer nights. _“What do you mean? I always talk.”_ The voice brought his nerves to a head and tiredness fell over him. He felt exhausted and drained, the way he had when his mother had passed away. _Has someone just died?_ He wondered as a dining hall came into view. It was empty except for the one who had spoken, a man in a white shirt sipping tea. He knew it was tea, peppermint tea to be exact, it was his favorite. 

_Whose?_ He felt his shoulders tremble, his tired body sagging in the seat. _Who are you?_ He wanted to yell at him, tell him to turn his face from the shadows so he could see it. Somehow he knew what he’d see, this person was familiar to him, had they been close? His heart ached to explain it. He was so familiar yet even as he grasped for him the image began to dissolve as the man looked around. The door swung open. 

Then he was back, panting in the warmth of his apartment. No more gas lights or soft voices or the clicks of boots on stone. But the lingering scent of peppermint tea hung in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "Forget About It" by All Time Low
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome


	3. Dreams only last for a night.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren's lack of self control becomes a problem and Levi's disregard of personal boundaries intensifies. Armin is a mother hen and Mikasa just puts up with Eren's shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless smut warning. Just a touch. For flavor?

Saturday morning found Eren absolutely exhausted. With his research approval he’d spent the week working desperately in his apartment; between the homework, survey preparation, and requisition forms he was barely able to eat. His desk was a fountain of carbon copies and lab reports and messy, handwritten notes and the floor was littered with clothes and textbooks and scraps of paper he’d been too exhausted to actually throw out. A clean path between his desk and the bed led to where a foot protruded from beneath the duvet as his eyelids fluttered over dreaming eyes. 

All of it had meant he’d gotten nowhere in searching his memories. Half scratched out lists were strewn across the kitchen table where he’d hastily written down details during his sorry excuse for dinners, the only reminder that he was doing something beyond studying. 

That and the dreams. 

_Oh_ the dreams. 

He groaned, fingers curling into the sheet beneath him, hips rutting against the mattress. _“That’s right moan like the whore you are,_ ” the voice pressed to his ear was fond and rough and _wrecked_. He tilted his hips, desperately wishing for more. More anything. More everything. “ _Saints, Eren…_ ” lips pressed prayers to his shoulders as he braced himself in the dark of the stone room. A hand on his hair jerked his head back so roving lips and teeth could scrape over his throat, each slick thrust sent stars across his vision. “ _Talk to me_ ,” The voice purred and Eren choked on his words, shoving his hips back for friction as he stilled. “ _What do you want, Eren_?” 

“F-Fuck me… p-please… don’t stop...” He moaned into his pillow, fingers tracking down his abdomen as he lifted on his knees. 

“ _Say my name, Eren_ ,” he commanded and Eren’s breath caught in his throat. 

“I--” he hesitated and it was gone. There he was again, panting and desperate in his bed… the sounds of Boston ringing in his ears. He groaned in frustration, slamming his fist down on the mattress. This was more than he could handle; horny and hard the smell of peppermint tea and sweat and sex still lingered in his nostrils. He’d been so close… if he could have… just remembered his name. 

He finished himself, trying to draw as much of the memory back as he could, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Even as he tossed his sheets into the washer and showered, scrubbing his head as if it could scrub his brain clean, he was thinking about his dreams. 

It was sick to be thinking about something this way, he knew that, obsessive almost: but he couldn’t just put aside his belief that his memories were real. _I have to do something. This has to stop._ He rinsed his hair and slicked conditioner through it, relishing in the feel of the hot water. _If only I could name him. Maybe he’d go away._ It was a destructive path to take: what if he never remembered? Would he never be happy? Would he never be able to settle down with someone? Would he just be consumed by this? 

\--- 

Armin sighed when he realized Eren’s door was unlocked again, pushing it open. “Eren?” He called, wrinkling his nose at the mess. 

“He left early this morning,” Armin whipped around to find a well dressed man locking the door to his apartment. 

“You! You’re the skeeve that just walked into his apartment!” Levi’s eyes flickered with amusement. 

“Skeeve is a bit rough don’t you think? The brat woke me up with all his hollering.” He adjusted his raincoat in his arm. “If you need him I think he went to the library.” 

“How do you know that?” Armin scowled. 

“He told me? I was getting the paper and he said something about a library and nearly fell down the stairs. Someone should get him a keeper.” 

“He’s his own keeper.” 

“A bad one at that,” Armin chuckled, he supposed this guy wasn’t that bad. “Well I have work unlike you, let the brat know I can smell the mess in his apartment from the first floor.” Levi walked down the stairs and Armin watched him go. Feeling like he’d seen him before. _Is Eren sure he’s not one of us?_ He wondered and started down the stairs as well. 

“Has Eren said anything to you?” Armin asked, catching up. 

“The kid says all kinds of stuff.” 

“I mean… anything weird?” Armin hinted a little harder. 

“You mean _titans_?” Levi asked pointedly and Armin stopped cold. “Yeah the kid’s mentioned some of that.” He slowed his walk on a landing, looking up the stairs. He glanced over the boy’s clothes; noting the practical rainboots pulled over his jeans and the crisp blue windbreaker half open on his t-shirt… just a normal college student. “Why?” 

“I… what did you think about that?” Armin took a step down, damp blonde hair in strings. 

“I think it’s strange, like anybody else.” 

“So that’s it?” An eyebrow quirked and Armin thought he might have hit on something. “That’s all you know about it: what Eren told you?” 

“Would you stop playing twenty questions and get to the point, shit-for-brains?” 

“Do you remember? Are you someone like us?” Armin’s eyes narrowed. 

“No. You know you all should be careful who you say stuff like that to,” the gleam in his eye vanished as he turned to walk down the next set of stairs. “Someone might take it the wrong way.” 

Armin watched him go, feeling like he’d been had. _He remembers… I just get the feeling he does… or maybe he suspects?_ He finished the walk down, lost in thought. 

\--- 

“What is all this?” Armin asked as he found Eren sitting with his laptop open, surrounded by books. “This isn’t your research…” He frowned as he flipped through a genealogy book. 

“Don’t get started, today’s my day off,” Eren said as he pushed his glasses up his nose. 

“You didn’t even bother putting contacts in? Geez you’re lazy.” Armin pulled his windbreaker off. “What are you up to?” 

“I’ve made a list of names, I thought I’d try and find them you know?” Eren asked. 

“You’re… Eren this is crazy!” Armin looked at the list. “You’re looking for people from a dream world!” 

“ _No_ Armin they’re real!” He looked over at him, messy brown hair falling into his eyes. “I swear on my life just… I have to find them.” 

“ _Find_ them? Eren do you hear yourself? All you have to go on is some dr--memories from some time period that doesn’t exist!” Armin told him. 

“I have… I have their names and I know their faces.” 

“Mikasa! You’re in on this too!” He gasped as the girl walked over carrying books to the table. 

“Well if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” she shrugged. “This way I can keep an eye on him and what he’s doing.” 

“You’re both nuts…” Armin muttered. “You’re both fucking crazy… this is a terrible idea.” 

“Sit down and start looking for the names,” Eren told him and he threw himself down in a chair. 

“Eren you realize this is a goose chase?” 

“Armin you’ve seen them! You’ve seen Mikasa on the maneuver gear and Sasha and Connie and Kirchstein!” 

Armin’s heart jumped at that name and the other two noticed: his cheeks flushed pink as deja vu rushed over him. “Th-That name sounds familiar.” 

“Jean Kirchstein? Yeah that’s because you and he were banging pretty frequently,” Eren told him. “I punched him out the first time I found you together.” 

Armin struggled to draw up a face, swallowing hard, “Eren that was… such a long time ago. We don’t even know when any of this happened or… if it did.” His voice drew to a whisper. 

“Are you going to help me or what?” Eren asked pointedly and Armin fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt. 

“Fine…” Mikasa grinned and handed him a book. 

“Here you can start with this one and…” The day was a flurry of books and paper cuts and exhausting recollection. By the evening it felt like they were farther from the truth than ever and after heading to a bar and drinking four too many beers they parted at a corner between their apartments. 

“I’m sorry Eren…” Mikasa muttered as she hugged him. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah…” He nestled his face against her shoulder and sighed drunkenly. “I think I’ll just give up…” He drew away, flush bright on his cheeks as he shifted his jacket to the other arm. “I’ll never find him…” 

“ _Him_ …” Armin echoed. “Eren you can’t even remember his name… he might not have ever existed… don’t let it bother you so much.” 

“Yeah… you’re right, you’re always right,” Eren muttered complacently. “Good night, buddy.” He hugged him as well and Armin smiled. 

“You’re such a creep,” he hugged him back tightly. “Go upstairs and get some rest, crazy.” He watched Eren go and pursed his lips. “He’s not going to let it go is he?” 

“He might… it’ll kill him if he doesn’t,” Mikasa folded her arms over her chest. “Armin do you really think all this is real?” 

“I think so, Mikasa… I can remember the same stuff as Eren but… I mean I just wonder if he’s right in finding more people… I wonder if they can remember. Why is it just me and him?” Armin muttered. 

“You both swear that I was there but I don’t remember anything, maybe it’s just the two of you? Maybe you just have those dreams with the people you know in them?” Mikasa suggested. 

“I had dreams with you in it before we ever met… and I know Eren’s started before your parents adopted you… I don’t know I’m too drunk to think about this,” he grumbled and Mikasa laughed. 

“C’mon I’ll walk you home,” she slung an arm around his waist and led him off. 

\--- 

Levi stretched out on his couch, computer comfortably in his lap as he typed up his report for the day. Working from home was so much more relaxing than working at work because at least at home he could get drunk and nobody would ask him what the flask was for. He heard his phone vibrate and he glanced over, not caring much for who it was. _She can’t leave me alone can she?_ The phone landed with a thunk on the floor and he sank back into the pillows. 

His head had been buzzing all week, cleaning had helped a little but not enough, and he lifted his hand up to watch the way his long fingers curl in on themselves. _Titans_. He rolled the word in his thoughts again, thinking about his conversation with the blonde boy earlier. He hadn’t bothered to get his name, come to think of it, but one swam into his head. _Arlert_. He mulled that word over as well. _Armin Arlert_. He pushed his laptop closed and shoved it onto the coffee table, picking up the tumbler of bourbon. 

Wasn’t that the same way he knew Eren’s name? The kid had just wafted into his thoughts like a breath of fresh air. Then again he could just be really good. He smirked lightly. He liked that idea better than the thought of some alternate past. “Shit--” A knock on his door had him jumping and he spilled bourbon on himself as he stood up and walked over to his door. “Fuck… I’m going to kill this ki--” his words were lost on his tongue as he opened the door to find a flushed and panting Eren leaning against the doorframe. His jeans were slipping down his hips, unfastened against the band of his boxer-briefs, the hard surface of his navel and the cut of his hips exposed. His t-shirt was wet, as if it had started raining again as he hurried towards the apartments and Levi thanked whatever god that existed for rainstorms. 

“I need you…” Eren said huskily, damp brown hair hanging in those beautiful turquoise eyes. 

“Fuck…” Levi breathed, every sense going straight to his groin. 

“I need you... to stop breaking into my apartment,” the drunken man slurred and Levi’s entire person deflated. “I know it was you… the… the only person with the…” he leaned on the doorframe a little more heavily. “The place is…” 

“Here let’s get you home,” Levi told him. “You’re so drunk you can’t see straight.” 

“I never see straight,” he giggled as Levi caught his back belt loop and pulled his arm around his shoulders to drag him into the other apartment. 

“I question your ability to make judgements, though being drunk probably doesn’t help.” What was upsetting Eren was obvious: some time during the day someone had entered his apartment and scrubbed it clean. Papers were filed in labelled folders in new storage boxes, the wood floors and rugs had been vacuumed and polished, every surface smelled like Pledge and febreeze. Even his bed had been remade with clean sheets and duvet cover. 

“C-Coming home to this it’s… th-there’s food in the fridge!” Eren slurred as Levi let him stand near the bed. 

“C’mon I’m not your mother, take your wet clothes off,” Levi told him and ruffled around in his drawers. 

“Why’re you… keep coming over here… and now you’ve violated me…” 

“If you’re not careful I might _really_ violate you.” 

“All my stuff is…” He gestured vaguely as he struggled to pull his shirt off over his head. 

“Organized? Clean? Not covered in filth and pizza grease?” Levi yanked his shirt off. “Damn it you’re useless, why am I here taking care of you, shitstain?” 

“Because you’re really kind, Captain,” Eren told him sweetly as the dark haired man knelt to tug his wet jeans off. He faltered, hands floating over the hem of his pants. _Captain?_ With each following heartbeat he caught a glimpse of something: green cloaks and blood. Panic built in his chest and he shook his head. _Captain! Captain Levi!_ He knew someone had called him that before. _Shit._ He tugged his jeans off and threw them into the hamper, not that Eren would ever bother washing his clothes if his apartment was anything to go by. 

“Pu-put these on and go to sleep you fucking slob,” Levi slapped a pair of striped pajama pants against his chest as he purred on the duvet. “Give me those,” he pulled his glasses off and dropped them on the bedside table as Eren sat up, “Before you fucking break them.” 

“I want to find someone…” He murmured, tugging one leg into his pants. “He’s… really important.” He missed with the other and Levi groaned exasperatedly. “I… I can’t remember his name but… I know he’s a he…” He missed again. 

“Fantastic, stop it you useless fuck monkey,” he caught his ankle and guided his foot into his pants. “I can’t fucking believe you.” 

“Will you… you’re so good at… being… can you help me?” Eren slurred as he tugged his pants up finally, letting Levi lift him to his feet. 

“Help you what?” 

“I want… I want to find them.” He murmured, letting the other man adjust his clothes. “I want to find the p-” -he hiccupped- “people in my dreams.” 

“Why?” A better question would be why he was even having this conversation with a drunk 22 year old. 

“B-Because I need to find him…” he murmured. “He’s the answer… to everything…” his eyes drooped closed. 

“Don’t fall asleep on me, brat,” he grouched. 

“Mmhmm…” Their first kiss was sloppy and drunk, Eren’s mouth finding his in a moment of weakness. He could taste the beer on his tongue; a bitter addition to his soft, sweet lips as he licked his way into his mouth. Levi kissed him back, if only because it had been so long since his last encounter; for sex was becoming increasingly rare recently, intimacy infinitely more so. 

He broke away first, pushing Eren to the bed. “Go the fuck to sleep, brat,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Christ you can’t control yourself,” He pulled the duvet over him and watched his disappointed eyes droop. _Thought so… he’s exhausted._ He thought fondly and tucked the blanket in. “Start locking your goddamned door.” 

“Yessir,” Eren said sleepily and Levi turned out the light. “Captain?” 

“What is it, Eren?” 

“Thanks,” His voice grew more faint and Levi had to thump himself on the chest to stop the ache. 

“Goddammit, brat, just go to sleep already,” he turned away and walked through the apartment he’d cleaned. _I’ve really got to do something about this._ He sighed and shut the door. 

That was the moment he decided he’d help Eren find who he was looking for. 

Later in life he might regret that decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading this is so much fun to write, I've got a few chapters already written after this already so I should be updating every day this week! Let me know if you like it!
> 
> chapter title from: Stay Awake by All Time Low
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome, thingsishouldntbedoing


	4. What do you want me to say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi makes a few decisions he regrets. Eren makes a few too. But everything's okay in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided I would write another chapter because, again, I can't get enough of this story.
> 
> Big thanks to windwolf0097 for keeping me going because I literally could not write this chapter.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome, thingsishouldntbedoing

He staggered to his feet, head aching desperately. Was it too much to ask that alcohol didn’t have these negative side effects? He found his way into the kitchen, crashing his shin into the coffee table on the way and swearing more times than necessary. _You’ve gotta be kidding me… what the hell happened last night?_ He groaned as the light inside the fridge blinded him. The whole apartment was blinding. Why was there so much light? Why were there so many windows? Who thought windows were a good idea? 

He remembered drinking with Armin and Mikasa… running around blindly in the rain… stairs… “Oh god…” He almost dropped the gatorade bottle in his hand. He licked his lips and found the distinct taste of bourbon. _Bourbon_. He’d never liked that particular alcohol but between the hangover breath and beer burps… shit it was more pleasant than anything else going on with him right now. All he needed was a god damned taquito and a fucking bloody mary. He downed his gatorade as he walked to his room, walking past the person coming in through his front door, and pulling his clothes off. “Ugh…” He stepped into jeans after groaning again, grabbing a t-shirt from the drawer. “Morning…” He grumbled as he walked past the intruder, too sick to care. 

“How much did you drink last night?” Levi asked, leaning on the bannister of the entry landing. 

“Ugh…” Eren groaned again. 

“I’m surprised you’re even walking, are you hungry?” That got his attention and he glanced over at him. “Come on I’ll buy breakfast.” He tossed him a hoodie and watched him pull it over his bedhead. Damn it he was adorable. “Glasses, Eren.” 

He trundled off to find them, crashing into the coffee table again (the other shin this time) and Levi snorted into his fist. “Are you okay?” 

“Don’t ask questions. Just feed me.” He put sunglasses on and tucked his regular glasses into his pouch. 

“Shoes, fucktruck, am I your mother?” 

“What’re you doin here anyway?” Eren frowned. 

“Well fine I’ll leave.” 

“No! Wait!” Eren sounded desperate. “Breakfast.” 

“You that broke, Jaeger?” 

“You said you’d buy breakfast,” he moped and Levi rolled his eyes, leading him out of the apartment. 

“Try not to fall down the stairs,” Levi told him as he started down. 

“Ugh…” 

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” 

After ten minutes trying to get dizzy Eren down the stairs Levi was forced to pick him up and throw him over his shoulder. “You know a week ago I was fine, living my own life without any concerns for anyone else. Now you’ve fucking shown up and I have to baby you every time I turn around.” 

“Sorry…” Eren muttered, head throbbing. 

“You should be! If you wouldn’t have shown up spouting goddamned nonsense I wouldn’t be having this problem.” 

“Sorry.” 

“And then you show up at my front door drunk off your ass and demand that I leave you alone.” 

“Well you could…” He rested his chin on his arm, closing his eyes. 

“I can’t! You know what would happen if I left you alone? Your house would go to shit again and I’d have to deal with the embarrassment of smelling the piss poor excuse for pizza you eat.” He hopped down the last step for the third floor. 

“I’d sleep more.” 

“You’d sleep the same amount now! I just wouldn’t be there to make you coffee when you wake up.” 

“You’re so nice to me.” 

“Fucking right I’m nice to you, I’m so nice to you I’m going to help you out.” He adjusted him, feeling Eren’s stomach churn against his shoulder. “I swear to god if you hurl I will end your fucking life.” 

“Guh…” Eren made a queasy noise. 

He did. Thankfully once they were at the bottom of the stairs and near a trash can but the miserable sound made Levi queasy himself. Eren was quiet as Levi led him along the street, letting those long fingers curl around his wrist and pull him along like a child. The sun overhead was burning his senses and he wondered why he’d allowed himself to be dragged outside on this cold Sunday morning… or why he’d even bothered to get up that morning. 

Levi handed him a bloody mary, sitting in a dank mexican food restaurant that Levi was sure sold drugs in the back room from the flurry of exchanged money as they had entered. He tilted his head curiously as Levi wrinkled his nose before sitting down. “Is this really the place you wanted to go?” 

“I like it here.” 

“It’s dark.” 

“You understand me, Levi.” He gave a broken smile and took a drink. 

“At least you’re smiling again, did puking help?” 

“Please don’t talk about puke,” Eren grumbled as he ordered four taquitos and sat back to wait. “Thanks.” He laid his head back. 

“You should have brushed your teeth. That’s disgusting Jaeger.” 

“You were rushing me!” He put a hand to his head, aching too badly to speak that loudly. 

“How much did you drink last night?” 

“Enough to forget,” Eren ran his finger around the rim of his glass. Levi’s eyes softened and he folded his arms over his chest. “Fuck… maybe more…” 

“Do you remember any of it?” 

“I remember… I drank with Armin and Mikasa but…” 

“But what? Come on I don’t have all day shitstain.” 

“I was dropping shots when they weren’t looking… I was… kind of desperate to forget someone.” His turquoise eyes watched where his finger connected thoughtfully. 

“Right, you asked me last night to help you so I’ve decided I’m going to. But there’s a fee.” Levi told him. 

Eren looked up at him groggily, having a hard time processing things. “Say what?” 

“Should I say it slower for you or do you just enjoy making me repeat myself?” 

“Why… would you help me? You don’t even know me.” Eren muttered tiredly. 

“I know you pretty damned well, I cleaned your whole house yesterday. Listen kid I’m going to help you and you’re going to pay me.” 

“I’m not having sex with you.” 

“I didn’t…” he hesitated. _That wasn’t what I wanted but taking it off the table is a little irritating after your display last night._ His grey eyes flashed with irritation. “Look fucker, you’re going to pay me cash and I’m going to help you. That’s about it.” 

“Okay,” he agreed. “How are you going to help me?” 

“I’m leaving tomorrow for a business meeting but I’ll do some work while I’m gone, you need to give me your contact information and I’ll forward you anything I’ve got. That means you need to tell me absolutely everything you remember. Names, ages, birthdays, how many fucking eyelashes they have. Got it?” 

“Yessir,” Eren said like a scolded child, looking desperate as the taquitos were delivered. They were greasy and Levi would have sworn that they weren’t even fresh but Eren devoured them like a starved man. 

“You’re going to get sick, you know?” 

“What’s your hangover cure then?” He grumbled as he sucked down more of his drink. 

“I don’t get hungover.” He saw a glint of a challenge in those turquoise eyes and suddenly regretted his decision. 

“Some time we should have a drinking game.” 

“It will be a cold day in hell before I go drinking with you.” In all honestly it wasn’t that long after this that they got drunk together, but that’s another story for another time. 

“Sure,” Eren smiled. “So you’re going to help me out… I think I have some information for you at home… and I’ll have to try and remember it…” He muttered. 

“So you can’t remember it all the time?” 

“No I… I just get glimpses and I can only remember parts of my dreams. Sometimes I have waking memories, but I don’t know how to trigger them.” Eren furrowed his brows. He’d been working on that for weeks and he was still at a loss. 

“Hmm… I’ll think about that too if you will,” Levi picked at a string on his jacket. “Tell me one thing.” 

“What’s that?” 

“What’s the point of all this? What the hell do you think you’re going to get out of it?” He leaned forward, sharp brows drawn. 

Eren looked lost for a moment, finishing his last taquito. He wiped his hands on his jeans and heard Levi’s noise of disgust, thinking. What was he expecting to get? What was the point of all this? “I guess I… I’ll know when I get there.” 

“You keep mentioning a man.” 

“Yes I… I remember him but I can’t… recall his face or his name.” He murmured almost sweetly, eyes half lidded. “I know…” 

“You’re in love with him,” Levi came to the understanding perhaps faster than Eren. “You’re chasing after a prince charming from a dream,” It started as a chuckle but it bubbled up in his throat and became a full on laugh as tears burned his eyes. “Oh jesus kid this is good.” Why was he laughing? Was it because the thought burned his gut and made him want to vomit? Because the idea of this kid spending his life looking for something he’d never find hurt him so deeply he had no other choice? 

Eren felt his throat burn, face hot, “St-Don’t fucking laugh.” 

“God damn brat’s in love with some stranger in a dream… that’s priceless shit!” He didn’t think he’d ever laughed so hard, and if Eren had any sense he would have posted it on YouTube. It was the first of only four times he ever saw him laugh quite like this. And all of them were his fault. “Oh jesus help…” He tried to calm down as Eren watched him, mortified. “Shit I’m sorry you’re just such a fucking… I can’t even…” He covered his face with his hands, but his smile broke as he heard someone get up in a hurry. “Eren! Eren don’t leave!” He threw cash down on the table as the boy flung the door open. 

“No! I’m tired of being made fun of!” Eren yelled, glasses fogging in the chill of the autumn air. He bumped into someone and his sunglasses skittered out of his pocket into a storm drain. “Fucking fanTASTIC!” His head throbbed as Levi grabbed for him. “No don’t touch me! I’m sorry I ever fucking told you about this! I should have fucking left you out!” 

“Goddamn it Eren!” 

“No! You’re just like everyone else that fucking laughs at me when I have to… when I have to fucking watch my friends die!” He cried. “When I have to feel that pain and watch shit like that happen over and over and you want to laugh because… because of just one thing!” He could feel hot tears against his face but he wasn’t sure if they were because he was basically death on legs or because of the pain building in his chest. The pain of a thousands no’s, a thousand laughs, a thousand people telling him that nothing was the matter. 

“Eren!” Levi got caught between people. “JAEGER!” It was as if he’d said the magic word and Eren slowed, turning to look at him. “God damn it…” He panted. “You fucking…” His hair was clinging to his forehead and the chips of black ice he called eyes were glistened as he straightened up. 

“Listen! Listen to me! I’m tired of this bullshit okay? I know… I know I sound like a crazy person…” His voice quieted, head still throbbing. “I know that…” He hung his head and rubbed his temples. “I just… can’t help it. I can’t… sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t do anything without thinking about this. I just want… I want peace.” 

_Peace_. That seemed like such a nice word to Levi. To be at peace with the world and everything he’d ever done. He nodded slowly under Eren’s gaze. “I’m sorry.” Eren was certain this was the only time he ever apologized. Ever. “I’m sorry I laughed.” 

“You don’t seem like the kind of person to laugh,” Eren muttered. “I didn’t think you would.” 

“It just…” Levi wasn’t sure he could explain it. It was almost desperation, because he had literally no other way to express the weird tangle of emotions in his chest. _Captain_. He remembered his voice the night before, the way he pleaded with him… the things he’d said. Why did the thought of this fucking kid being in love with a dream feel like such a goddamned nightmare? “Let’s go back, okay? You need rest and… I have a business meeting to prepare for, brat,” He put his hand atop of his messy locks. 

Eren searched his face, “Are you… you’re not going to laugh anymore?” 

“I will never laugh again if it’ll keep you from asking me stupid questions.” He already felt bad enough. His heart was absolutely _aching_ at the thought. 

“If you really mean it will you do something for me?” 

“I’m already going on a fucking goose chase,” Levi warned. 

“Will you help me find my key?” 

“For fuck’s sake,” but Eren saw the smile flicker across his lips. What he didn’t see was the way Levi looked at him as they started back to their building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is "Return the Favor" by All Time Low
> 
> Let me know what you think! Thanks so much for reading! <3


	5. The sun one day will leave us all behind.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin finds himself in a situation he'd only dreamt about, Eren says some stupid things, and Levi's trip takes a turn south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This is an incredibly sad chapter. I'm not kidding. I sobbed writing it.
> 
> There will be a mini chapter up tomorrow afternoon in apology. It'll be fluffy and sweet to help soothe this.
> 
> Chapter title from "Kill Your Heroes" by AWOLNATION
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome, thingsishouldntbedoing

_How did I find myself here?_ Eren wondered. _Oh that’s right._

\--- 

“Hullo?” Eren lifted his head, pockmarked keyboard lines traced against his temple. Half his hair was smooshed and flat while the other stood out in whatever direction seemed to suit it best. “Whuttime ‘zzit?” He tracked to the time in the corner of his screen. It was early… he must have fallen asleep working on lab reports. 

_Shit he’s wearing glasses again._ He found that more than just a little attractive, they fit his face and made Levi want to kiss him just to feel the cool glass against his face. “You damned brat did you answer a call at 3 AM?” 

“Why’d you call me, then?” Eren asked sleepily, rubbing his eye beneath his glasses. _Oh jesus they’re cute._ His breath caught in his throat when he imagined those sleepy eyes looking up at him as he came, semen dripping down those _goddamned glasses_. He stuffed his fist into his mouth and sank his teeth into his hand. 

“I have some information for you, just a little though, so don’t get excited,” Levi answered and watched a sleepy smile cross his face. 

“Are you okay?” Eren yawned. “What time is it there?” He tapped his phone. _He sent me texts too…_

“Eight in the morning, I had thought you’d be awake.” 

“Well I’m awake now,” Eren murmured almost affectionately. “What have you found?” 

It had been three weeks since Levi had taken off to London, something about business meetings and negotiations. Somehow Eren almost missed him being around, and he really missed his coffee being ready in the mornings and his laundry being done… and the other pleasantries that Levi seemed to do that Eren didn’t notice until the odd man was gone. 

“I’ve found Jean Kirchstein and Marco Bodt.” The words hit him like a cold shower and Eren gasped hard. “Jesus don’t rub one off about it, put your hands where I can see them.” 

“Where? Where did you find them?” Eren asked, more awake than he had been before, as he pushed his glasses up. Levi’s previous thought came back to him and it made his chest tight, oh how his nose would wrinkle, he wondered if he could get him to lick them clean while he watched. 

“New York, incidentally, they live there together.” 

\--- 

_How did all this get me here?_ He lifted his hand and knocked on the townhouse door nervously. Armin shuffled his feet behind Eren, unhappy that his friend had forced him to drive all the way out there. Mikasa seemed happier, somehow, bright eyed in the cold October morning. 

There was a scuffle behind the door and a soft laugh as a thin young man answered it, “It’s fine Jean I--” His face went slack as his eyes landed on them. “Jean…” A hand caught his back and a familiar face emerged from behind him. 

“You’re shitting me…” his golden eyes looked them over, “Well get the hell in here.” 

Eren didn’t even get a word in as they were led into the house with another faint laugh from Marco. He glanced around, seeing a wheelchair off to the side and a number of pill bottles on the coffee table. “Excuse the mess we weren’t expecting company.” Eren made the connection when he saw how thin Marco looked next to Jean, the way the other held him gently. 

“Oh god…” Armin said, stuffing his fist into his mouth and Mikasa caught her hand against the back of his head reassuringly. 

“Would you like some tea?” Marco offered. 

“Coffee if you’ve got it, it was a long drive,” Eren said softly. It was like being back at home, being comfortable and warm and having friends to laugh with. Nothing felt out of place here. “Do you… remember us?” 

Marco’s smile flickered a little as he looked at Jean, “Yes we do…” 

“Let me do that why don’t you sit down?” Jean said in a voice that Eren didn’t recognize but brought Armin close to tears. There was an odd tension in the room that even Mikasa seemed to sense as Marco lowered himself into a chair, gesturing for them to sit. “I remembered all along, nightmares and dreams and all kinds of crazy things. I’m still surprised you found us. I never thought to try to look.” He glanced over at Armin, the blonde was staring at the wall blankly; blue eyes damp. 

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Marco caught Armin’s hand as he settled into a seat. His hand was pale and fragile against Armin’s, fingers curling into his hand. “Isn’t it nice to see them all again, Jean?” 

“You should be careful,” Jean warned. “You’re going to wear yourself out.” 

“I’m fine, you worry too much.” The ring on his finger glinted and Eren glanced at Armin. _Maybe this was a bad idea. Is this why he didn’t want to come?_

“Sure, whatever.” The coffee brewed up and he leaned against the kitchen counter, folding his arms over his chest. “So you remember this freaky stuff too?” 

“I do,” Eren nodded. It was all so surreal. When he thought about it before this he thought he’d cry or yell or be happy or angry or any number of emotions upon finding out that someone else remembered all this shit but… now he just felt numb. Numb that these people had lives and relationships. Numb that suddenly he was confronted with people who remembered the same things as him. “Do you… think it’s real?” Eren asked breathlessly. 

“I do,” Marco smiled as coffee was distributed. “I think that it is, honestly, and I feel like this just proves it further. At least I got to see you all…” 

“What’s wrong with you?” Eren asked bluntly and Mikasa choked on her coffee. “Is it curable?” 

Jean looked away and Marco smiled patiently, “I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.” 

“That’s… there’s an 83 percent survival rate in men under the age of 35!” Eren spit out a protest straight from his textbooks. “So you’re… going to be okay?” 

“Eren,” Armin warned. 

“It’s alright, we’re not technically strangers here. If I trusted you with my life before I’m sure I can trust you with it again,” Marco consoled and smiled at Armin. 

“You’re all as crazy as Eren!” Armin panicked a little, standing up sharply. “You’re just acting completely calm! You’re all sitting in a kitchen with some people you’ve never met before! Discussing some dreams that don’t mean anything! I’m sorry! I’m leaving!” He left out the front door before anyone could say anything. 

It was quiet for a few moments and Marco glanced at Jean once more and Eren could feel his heart break. _There will never be a happy ending for them_. He bit his bottom lip. 

“I only have a few weeks left,” Marco’s voice nearly broke but it was so low he fought it down. He didn’t take his eyes off Jean. “I’m so happy you came.” 

“Why?” Eren asked softly. 

“I desperately wanted to see you all again, in all my dreams… for all that time… I wished forever to know if we’d won… I always believed in you all.” 

Eren felt his throat burn and Mikasa caught his hand. “It’s okay…” She told him gently. 

“I’m so happy you came today, Eren,” Marco stood up and walked over to him. “Please don’t be sad about this… it’s just how things go sometimes.” He caught the boy in his arms. 

At a time when other people should be supporting him, a time when his friends and family should have him wrapped in their arms as he finishes his life… he’s holding a boy he barely knows and letting him cry into his shoulder. Nostalgia washed over Mikasa; the image of a freckled boy kneeling by other soldiers to console them. Whose smile could never be quenched. 

It was the first time things seemed familiar… and it made her heart ache. She bit her bottom lip and glanced at Jean, the man was watching with soft eyes and she thought to herself: _He’s changed. But haven’t we all?_

\--- 

“It must be cold out here,” Armin felt a warm blanket being deposited around his shoulders and he glanced up. “I’m sorry about all this.” Marco sat next to him with a little trouble and Armin reached up to give him support. “Ugh… even sitting has become a chore.” He murmured. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“About what?” 

“I… I don’t know I just… I’m sorry…” Armin looked surprised when Marco took his hand gently in his again. 

“I have no reason to be scared, Armin, because I know what happens now. Isn’t that the beauty of this whole situation? We know.” He said softly. “We’ve all been through it before.” 

“You don’t get to be happy with him,” Armin’s tears burned his eyes. 

“I got to be happy with him for more than my fair share of years,” he assured him. “Please take good care of my husband.” 

“I…” his bottom lip shook so hard Marco had to catch his face in his hands. 

“He’s going to be going through a hard time. I know it’s hard to have someone ask this of you but… he loves you just as much as he loves me. You had so much time together, you lived such wonderful lives. He remembers you and he always will. Please tell me… you won’t leave him alone now.” Marco brushed his thumb against his cheek to wipe the tears away. 

“You shouldn’t die. You shouldn’t have died. It should have been you with him… all this time…” Armin shivered but it wasn’t the cold as a sob burned his throat. “I-I’m being so selfish.” 

“I’m the selfish one, Armin.” He wrapped his arm around him. “I’m asking you to do something for me, a complete stranger, for someone you only know from memories you aren’t sure are real… I understand what it’s like to see someone and know them on sight… I knew Jean from the moment we met. As if we’d never parted. But I know that no matter what love he and I share yours is just as strong.” 

“This is just cruel… I’d give anything… I watched him m-mourn…” he couldn’t breath. “I’d give my life for you to live.” He let Marco wrap his arms around him, burying his face in his thin chest. So many long forgotten memories, so many horrible thoughts and feelings were bubbling up inside of him. “So he’d… just be happy… just once…” 

Marco felt his heart break, burying his face in the boy’s hair and holding him as tightly as his arms would allow, “Shhh…” He stroked his hair, placing a kiss atop his head, but tears burned his eyes as well. “Don’t ever think… for a moment that a single memory of you has ever been tarnished by one of me,” he whispered. 

For a while they just sat there; crying into each other’s arms. It was bittersweet, to say the least, for the others inside. Jean and Eren had started to discuss their memories; their rivalry building already as they talked about their current lives. Mikasa was happy to see Eren distracting him, that seemed to be his goal, to get his mind off the situation at hand. _Is this why he remembers all this?_ Mikasa wondered. _To touch people’s lives?_ She smiled as Jean flexed his arm, the two of them at odds about their physical prowess. _Eren Jaeger you are so much more than just a kid with some weird dreams._

\--- 

Thousands of miles away Levi’s eyes flickered beneath hooded lids, blood and flesh flying past him as his blades tore through the flesh of a titan; a boy’s body emerging. 

_“You just can’t let me die in peace, can you brat?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it were there is going to be a spin off sort of companion fic to this one based on Armin and Jean and Marco. It will be posted some time in the next few days. If you don't like Jearmin or Jeanmarco or you hate being sad then I suggest you don't read it.
> 
> Sorry for the lack of Levi, there's lots of him in the minichap.


	6. A little more about your dreams. (mini chapter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Levi did while Eren was in the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a little tidbit for you while I finish up the first chapter of the companion fic. Please enyoy.
> 
> Chapter title is from "What's It Feel Like To Be a Ghost?" by Taking Back Sunday.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishoudlntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome, thingsishouldntbedoing,

He loosened his tie as he walked up the stairs to his apartment, sighing lightly as he saw that Armin had left the apartment door open a crack. _Fucking actual special child._ He walked over and gripped the door handle to close the door and was met with the scent of-- _ugh_ \--whatever it was. College student might be the best word for it. Pizza and stale beer and energy drinks, Chinese take out and printer ink and clothes that hadn't been folded in their lifetimes. He wrinkled his nose and instead pushed the door in just slightly. 

Maybe he could just tidy it up a bit? There was nothing wrong with that. He'd been in and out over the past week or so; before he left for work he'd drop by and start the coffee maker and distribute whatever thing he thought was a good idea. Recently it had been oil diffusers, not that it was helping much with the overbearing nature of the brat's mess. 

Eren never seemed to complain. 

Maybe it was time to take things to the next level. 

Or maybe he just couldn't control himself. How could anyone work in all this clutter? 

With that he went to get his supplies and take off his suit, tying a bandana around his nose and mouth. 

And so his work began. 

He tackled the kitchen first; picking up dishes from around the house and piling them in a sudsy sink. He was disgusted by this boy's eating habits perhaps more than he was by his drinking habits that seemed to consist of beer and Red Bull. Week old pizza crusts and Chinese food that Levi would swear he remembered being delivered last Tuesday... Whatever this green shit was -- _oh god it's a sandwich._

By the time he'd thrown out every last spec of _fucking_ food and shoved the dishes into the sink to soak he turned to admire what his handiwork had done so far. 

Absolutely nothing. 

He'd barely even made a dent. 

_For Christssake_. He frowned and began to pick up clothes off the floor-- This fucking kid hasn't done laundry in years. He found a shirt he swore was radioactive, as if it would come to life at any moment and attack him with it's filth. _How do people live like this?_

He smiled as he found a high school shirt, letters fading on the dark blue fabric. It looked like it was one of his favorite shirts with soft, worn fabric that smelled distinctly like his shampoo and the cheap aftershave that graced his skin. Levi lifted it to his covered nose for a moment, smiling, it smelled like Eren. 

Like musk and soap and shampoo. Even after all these years he chose the same scents, it brought nostalgia to his mind: The memory of soft skin beneath his mouth and long, tanned fingers carding through his hair. The sighs and moans of lovers stealing a moment from a world that turned too quickly. 

His heart ached. 

_What the fuck is wrong with me?_

He threw the shirt into the hamper, swallowing hard against the burn in his throat. Things had been going strangely for him lately, he couldn't explain anything he thought anymore. He knew he'd been dreaming, nightmares had kept him up night after night this week, but he'd yet to recall any of them. It was why he kept coming to Eren, he thought, as if the boy could comfort him in his sleep. 

Well there was something relaxing about listening to the boy sleep soundly in his bed, hearing him dream from time to time as Levi prepared his coffee. Something comfortable and warm in his chest when Eren sat up to look at him before collapsing into bed. Something beautiful about how he didn't even wake up when he was there anymore. 

He shoved clothes into the washer, starting the next load, before turning to the bedroom. For the first time he could see the floor; beautiful, old, refinished oak that all the apartments had. There were rugs beneath the clutter that begged to be vacuumed and Levi sighed. Maybe this was more work than he bargained for. 

He shuffled through the papers he'd collected and piled up and organized them into piles based on their contents. He'd have to pick up a desk organizer and some folders. Perhaps humiliating ones to shame him into keeping things clean. He wasn't even entirely sure why he was here doing this. Maybe it was calming to his frayed nerves or just therapeutic in general. He liked making things clean and being elbow deep in dish soap was an experience he couldn't replace and leaving what seemed to be the entirety of Eren's dishware drying on a rack made him happy as he scrubbed the counters down. 

He let his mind wander as he finally turned to clean the bathroom, surprised at just how clean it was (in comparison to the rest of the house anyway) but supposed it had something to do with the tampons in the cabinet. _He has a sister I think._ He mused as he cleaned the mirror with windex and let bleach soak in the bathtub. _He's such a weird kid. Smart and driven but he seems so waylaid by these dreams. If he'd let go of them he'd have a chance at something great._ He smiled when he remembered the light in his eyes. _What's wrong with me lately?_

When he came back from shopping the apartment was like a breath of fresh air. He'd left the windows open to let the cool evening air of September in and all the disgusting must out. He smiled at his handiwork, floors shining and desk cleaned, couch vacuumed and cover washed. He'd even scrubbed out the appliances, yet another detail he admired as he stocked the fridge and pantry with food he'd bought. 

_Did that blonde kid really think… that I could be one of them?_ He wondered as he sat down and glanced through the notes he was shuffling on the kitchen table… the thing he’d left for last. Lists of names and rough sketches of faces, smudged details on the pages of time that Eren could barely grasp and Levi couldn’t even begin to fathom. 

He swore some of them seemed familiar, as if he had scribbled one of them down on the edge of a napkin once at a coffee shop. As if he’d whispered them in the dead of night when the only witness was his computer screen and a bottle of bourbon half finished on his bedside table. 

As if they were something he’d lost a long time ago. Something he should have remembered. Something he’d never find again. 

_This damned brat._ He caught his hands in his face and leaned over the table. 

Why did he hurt so much? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it was short and shitty. More fun soon. :)
> 
> COMPANION FIC IS FINISHED! [The Sound of a Second](http://archiveofourown.org/works/989585)


	7. To find the resolution.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi's nightmares are getting worse. Eren has regrets. Armin hurts a little less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! So now that there's this odd weaving of story happening sometimes what happens in these chapters will relate to something that happens in [The Sound of a Second](http://archiveofourown.org/works/989585). 
> 
> If that happens I will include the necessary details from the other story that are needed for this one. Otherwise the full story can be found in the other chapter. I will hopefully list the corresponding chapter here if you need to know!
> 
> This time it's Chapter 2 that will be out tomorrow and Chapter 3! THANKS FOR READING! <3

_I can’t stop._ He glanced ahead and saw her back, rappelling to another tree as he tried to cut the titan off. _I have to get him back._ His fingers were tight on the blades, whirling gracefully for momentum and gritting his teeth. 

_Eren._

His eyes snapped open and he surveyed his surroundings, desperate for something that would anchor him to this world. He groaned, sitting up as beads of sweat rolled down the smooth plane of his chest, running his fingers through his hair. _What time is it?_ He glanced over at his clock and his lips parted in surprise. _Did I… really sleep in that late?_ It shouldn’t have surprised him, honestly, he’d barely slept the entire time he was in Europe… but that had nothing to do with jet lag and everything to do with _dreams._

His shower was brief, hindered by his apathy, but he managed to pull sweatpants on before walking to the door and pulling it open, “What?” _All I wanted was the damned newspaper._

Eren was standing with his hand extended, coat hung over his arm. His brown hair was pushed back from his face, the collar of his white shirt offset by a trim black suit and loose tie. There was sadness on his face, etched into the lines beneath his eyes and in the set of his jaw, “I… didn’t think you’d be home.” 

“What’s happening?” Levi asked. If Eren, the boy he didn’t know even owned a suit, was wearing one that could only mean one of two things: funeral or wedding. _Idiot._ He watched Eren’s lip tremble and reached up to pull him into a hug, “Tch.” 

Levi’s skin was warm and damp from his shower, hair fragrant and masculine, and Eren buried his face against the crook of his neck. He didn’t know why this was the first place he came, why he’d desperately hoped he’d be back from Europe, why the warmth of his skin was a comfort when not even his sister had been able to settle his frayed nerves… why this was the only person he’d thought of. 

He’d made a mistake. 

This whole situation was a mistake. 

He never should have started looking. He should have left everyone alone. His dreams should never have come to him. He felt cool fingers on the back of his neck, lips against his temple, gentle murmurings of reassurances… and realized he was crying. 

“I just wanted…” Eren trembled and Levi caught him tightly in his arms, fingers tangling into his carefully crafted hair as his arm gripped his tapered waist, “I just wanted to know everyone again.” 

Marco’s funeral had taken its toll on him. Marco’s funeral had taken its toll on Armin worse. His best friend had spent nearly two weeks with them; getting to know them and supporting them and slowly but surely falling in love with Jean again… and it made Eren feel worse that he had just left him there. 

Abandoned at a funeral he wouldn’t have even attended if it wasn’t for Eren. 

Abandoned to care for a mourning man who would never feel the same way about him. 

“I started this mess… I’ve hurt so many people already,” he said as Levi pulled him into the apartment. “Why am I doing this?” 

“I don’t know, only you can answer that question,” Levi pressed another kiss to his temple gently. “Why are you?” 

“I-I just…” That man flashed through his mind again, the shape of his body and the curve of his spine and the grace of his hands… he had to find him. “I need… to find him…” 

Levi’s fingers tightened into the fabric of his suit jacket, “Then you have to know there’s going to be collateral damage.” 

“I was so surprised I couldn’t even ask them about him, so desperate for Marco to live. And now I’ve caused… I’ve caused Armin so much pain,” he rubbed his face against the bare skin of his shoulder as if he were wiping away the tears. 

“If Armin didn’t want to see those people again he didn’t have to,” Levi told him gently. “But he did and he went with you. That’s not your fault. You didn’t force him to do anything and that makes nothing your fault.” 

“I could have left well enough alone! I could have… ignored them… pretended they weren’t real,” Eren murmured. _Like everybody else._

“Would you really have been okay with that?” Levi gripped his hair and pulled his head back from his shoulders to search his eyes. “Would you have been okay with being like everybody else and pretending it didn’t matter to you?” His blue eyes were emotive, almost grey in their clarity. “Tell me, Jaeger.” 

His voice sounded commanding, sharp in its texture and deep in its tone; familiar. “I… well no probably.” He withered until his gaze, finally looking away from those tired eyes. 

“Then stop regretting your decisions. Armin is a big boy, he can make his own decisions as well. You can’t keep thinking you’re responsible for everything. You’ve got to learn to trust other people and let them make mistakes.” _You’re one to talk._

Eren nodded, face damp with tears. _He’s right._ He knew that, but somehow it was still hard to convince himself of that. _Why did I come to you?_ He leaned forward. 

Their second kiss was desperate. 

Levi was surprised at the force of his mouth, at the characteristic way his tongue slid along his top lip as his teeth scraped the bottom, the bitter flavor of coffee and creamer. He kissed him back, tangling both hands high into soft brown hair, nearly groaning at the way his hands found his ass and _squeezed._

Sober was much better than drunk. 

Eren licked his mouth open, sucking his tongue lightly and curling his own around it. He did groan at the way Levi rutted against him as soon as his hands were on him, too emotionally compromised to care very much that the door to the hallway was open. Their kisses were hot and heady; open mouths and moans and desperate breaths of each other’s air as Levi’s hands fisted in his button down and tried to pull it away. 

Levi couldn’t remember when he’d pushed him down on the couch, buttons flying across the room, or when he’d straddled him with long, tanned fingers pulling his sweatpants around his thighs. He’d heard Eren’s protest, a meek sound of ‘ _wait_ ’, before he murmured some promise about buying him a new shirt. All he fucking cared about was getting his hands on the tanned skin that haunted his dreams. 

“Eren?” A voice came through the haze from the hallway and Levi’s hasty movements halted. “No he’s not here, Armin.” 

“Mikasa…” Eren sank his teeth into his hand out of nerves, praying desperately that she hadn’t heard. 

Then the knock came. 

Levi was fast, leaping to the door and smoothing his hair down as Eren tried desperately to collect himself, “Hello?” His voice was smooth despite what he’d been doing just moments before. 

“Oh… so you’re Levi,” Mikasa’s voice sounded disapproving. “Have you seen Eren?” 

“He’s in here resting,” Levi told her and glanced over his shoulder. Eren stood, glad that at least his rumpled shirt could be explained. 

“Hey, sis,” Eren said sheepishly, “Is that Armin on the phone?” He noticed her disapproving look and glanced away. 

“What are you doing over here?” 

“I wasn’t feeling well,” Eren answered lamely and walked towards her. 

“If you’re sure,” she seemed to accept that answer. “I’ve found him, Armin.” 

“Well… I should probably go…” Eren glanced at Levi and noticed the way he was looking at him; desire sparkling in his blue-grey eyes. 

“Yes. You probably should,” the deep timbre of his voice went straight to Eren’s loins as Mikasa walked back to Eren’s apartment. 

“I can’t do this… you know that…” Eren murmured. “It’s… wrong.” 

“To cheat on a ghost?” Levi’s fingers sought the edge of his hip exposed by a folded piece of his shirt. 

“I’m going to find him again, he’s everything,” Levi looked to the heavens as he spoke. “I won’t be able to look him in the eyes… and tell him I love him if I sleep with you.” 

“You sure have a lot of romantic ideas, Jaeger.” 

“I’m sorry,” Eren turned and followed Mikasa back to the apartment. 

Levi shut the door quietly and stared at the panels with rage in his veins. _I’ll find him for you Eren._ He felt his muscles tense, lifting his hand to hit something, before he smoothed his hand against the sealed wood. _As soon as you stop haunting me._

\--- 

Armin had joined them that evening, smiling vaguely. Now he was sitting on the couch with Eren, shoving him as someone sniped him from afar. “No fair! Damn it Eren!” Eren was happy to see his mood had improved since the funeral. 

“Haha! That was me!” Mikasa grinned. “Eat it dickweeds!” She KO’d Eren and nearly screamed with laughter as he threw his controller across the apartment. 

“God damn it! Where did you even get a rocket launcher! We said trucks were off limits!” Eren’s t-shirt was a thing of beauty ‘ _Armin Arlert Defense Squad_ ’ was a joke leftover from their sophomore year of college when Armin had finally grown into the beautiful thing he was now; Mikasa and Eren had followed him around with their shirts on and growled at anyone that dared to crush on him. 

Needless to say it was the best few months of their lives. 

Except for Armin who still flushes to this day. 

“Christ I can’t believe you two!” Eren groaned and threw himself down on his bed in the other room as Armin cackled. 

“Done with Halo now Eren?” Mikasa asked as she checked out the window. 

“No! As soon as I recover I’m going to own both your asses!” He said, muffled by the pillow. 

“You say that every time, Eren! Just admit it! I’m a better tactician,” Armin told him. “What’s up, Mikasa?” 

“It’s snowing.” 

Eren was up faster than Armin could blink, throwing himself to the massive windows in his bedroom and throwing them open. “Oh my god!” 

“Did you think I was kidding?” Snow was coming down thick, coating the ground with its splendor. “H-Hey where are you going?” Eren was shoving his feet into boots and pulling on a hoodie. 

“To play come on!” Armin wasn’t far behind. The last thing Armin wanted to do was think about what had happened earlier that day. 

“You two are drunk!” 

“We’ve had a six pack between us! Don’t be such a spoil sport!” Eren picked her up and she screamed, laughing as he hauled her out the door. 

“EREN!” Mikasa was nearly in tears as she glanced at the opposite door, watching Levi watching them through a crack in the door. “Eren wait!” She giggled as he started down the stairs. “EREN!” 

Armin glanced where she was looking, but the door had snapped shut, “Eren I’ve got her boots!” He chimed as he followed them, picking up the red scarf that had fallen from Mikasa’s neck. He was breathless with laughter as they made their way into the foyer, Mikasa struggling the whole way against Eren’s grip. 

“Eren c’mon!” Mikasa was starting to feel giddy with her head upside down. “E-Eren?” He stopped walking and she glanced up to see that the blood had drained from Armin’s face. _What’s happening?_ She pushed against Eren’s back and peered over her shoulder. 

“Hey,” a familiar voice said. 

“Jean…” Armin’s voice sounded relieved and he brushed past Eren and Mikasa to wrap his arms around him. 

The joyous moment had turned to a quiet one as Eren put Mikasa on her feet. Jean’s hair was thick with snow, rivulets of water melting off him, but there was a faint smile on his face as he accepted Armin’s embrace and wrapped his arms around him tightly. They stood there for a long moment, Jean’s face buried in the crook of Armin’s neck. 

_Collateral damage_. That was what Levi had said. But as Mikasa looked at him and smiled, as Armin and Jean broke apart and looked into each other’s eyes, as Jean grazed his thumb over Armin’s cheekbone and murmured something in the quiet of the falling snow… he had the feeling that maybe collateral damage wasn’t that bad. 

_Sometimes._ He looked up the gap between the stairs, searching out his floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Guts" by All Time Low.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome


	8. You felt it once before I know you did.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean is surprised by Levi. Eren and Levi get drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the smut you've all been waiting for. Or haven't been waiting for. I don't know?
> 
> Enyoy either way.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, series: tbh, series: their beating hearts

“I’m sorry I made you chase me,” Armin whispered, “I’m so sorry.” 

That was all Eren had heard as Armin held Jean tightly in his arms. 

It made him wonder what had happened between them. What was happening. 

Even with that the next week was a blissful time for almost everyone anyway. Armin and Jean spent time with Eren and Mikasa, laughing and sometimes speaking in hushed voices on the couch while Eren and Mikasa were playing games. Eren had a feeling that Jean didn’t want to go home just yet; not to the reality of having to live alone… but that was fine. He didn’t want him to be lonely either. It was better to let him mourn and recover the way he needed to, especially since with everyone in his apartment he felt a lot less lonely himself. 

At night if Armin and Jean slept over he could hear them murmuring to each other; hear Armin holding him close and comforting him. He was glad, at least, that they weren’t banging in his bed. 

Then, at least, he supposed that someone would be getting some on his mattress. 

A twinge of jealousy bubbled up inside of him when he thought of them. His collateral damage was moving towards being happy, they had a chance to be together and enjoy each other’s company… but what had he gotten out of it? A stiffened resolve to continue his search? Another plucked heartstring to hum in tune with the already aching desire to find the man in his dreams… to find all of them. 

“ _Eren_ …” his heard his voice in his head. 

\--- 

Levi turned the door handle, prepared to make coffee for his neighbor on his way to work, but what he found inside the apartment was laughable. Eren was sprawled out on the rug in the living room: shirt tucked up around his armpits with one hand on his navel and the other thrown over his eyes to keep out the light, the blanket he had apparently been using was tangled around his ankles beneath the bunched up pant legs of his sweatpants. He was dreaming, lips moving around imperceptible words as his fingers curled against the cut of his hip. Was it wrong to take advantage of a sleeping idiot? 

“Eren…” he sighed. 

He next spotted the woman he’d met the other night on the couch, Eren’s sister he supposed, she was sleeping in one of Eren’s shirts and what he assumed was a pair of her brother’s boxers. _These kids are way too comfortable with each other._ He watched her for a moment; something seemed familiar about her. _It’s just because you saw her the other night._ He tried to fight down the flickering images that rose in his mind before whipping his head around to sounds from the other room. The french doors into the bedroom were half open; their milky glass only semi-opaque and he could see the bright colors of Eren’s duvet shifting. 

_I guess that explains why Eren’s on the floor._ He peered through the crack in the doors and found a stranger sitting up in bed, staring at him suspiciously. He could see the blonde of Arlert’s hair beneath the blankets, caught a glimmer of cerulean as his eyes fluttered open. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Jean’s voice cut the silence and he was starting up and out of the bed, ignoring when Armin grabbed for his pants groggily. Levi felt a pang of excitement: it had been a while since he’d been in a fight and it was always so much fun to put kids in their place. 

“Hey I asked you a question! What the fuck are you doing in here?” 

“Making coffee,” Levi’s eyes glittered as Jean approached. 

“Levi?” He heard Eren’s tired voice from behind him and turned his head. “Jean what’s going on?” 

“Who the hell is this guy?” Jean gestured as Mikasa sat up, rubbing her eye. “Are none of you even concerned about this?” He sounded incredulous and Levi chuckled. 

“He does this sometimes, Jean,” Armin added from the bedroom as Jean pushed open the French doors. “He lives across the hall.” 

“Wh-What? He’s your neighbor and you just let him walk into your house?” He looked at Eren with even more incredulity than before. 

“He makes me coffee…” Eren said dully. 

“I’m also the reason this place doesn’t look like a trash dump, I take it you’re Kirchstein?” Levi said and Jean hesitated. 

“How do you know my name?” Jean frowned. 

“I overheard them talking about you,” he covered smoothly. “I figured you were the only one I didn’t know," he could almost feel Eren's eyes burning into his back. "I'm going to make coffee, at least the place is decently tidy." 

Eren shifted, looking up at him as he walked by, for some reason there was hope in his heart... _How did he know Jean's name?_ He looked over at Armin, finding the blonde's face to be more subdued and suspicious. 

"Wait you said his name was Levi?" Jean rolled the name in his mouth. There was something familiar about it. It washed over him like the first breath of cold air in winter. 

"That's my name, fucktruck, got a problem with it?" 

"Hey!" Armin scolded. 

"What? Jesus you kids are fucking wastes of space," Jean's déjà vu fogged his vision and made him nauseous. Why was he feeling like this? Why did he seem so familiar? "Is Kirchstein okay?" Levi's voice echoed in the air as if he were hearing it through a tunnel. "Get him! _We can't lose another Commander!_ " 

\--- 

"Jean?" When his eyes fluttered open Armin had his head in his lap, a cold compress on his forehead. "Jean are you okay?" Jean tracked the room groggily and found Levi standing to the side with Eren. 

"What happened?" He asked softly. 

"You just... Looked pale and you fainted," Mikasa's face swam in his sight. "You're safe now," he felt as though he was moving, trundling along on the wood floor beneath him. 

"Is there an earthquake?" He asked a little stupidly and Levi snorted. "Ugh..." He lifted his hands to look at them, counting the fingers for a moment. "I'm okay... Really I'm okay..." He sat up and caught the compress. The room swam again and he was trundling along in a cart, blood seeping through Armin's fingers as he bandaged his leg. As quickly as it was there it was gone and the world stilled around him. 

"They're not just dreams," Eren said softly. 

"You think?" Jean grumbled, "But that's the first time I've experienced a flashback like that." 

Levi watched them thoughtfully, brows knitted. _Was I the trigger for that?_ He remembered the dreams that had plagued him in Europe, the blood splattered over his memories that left him breathless with fury in the dark of the night. Hatred that stewed behind a carefully guarded facade. 

A boy whose fearsome power was his to control. Whose trust was his to break between his fingers: fragile as glass and tensile as steel. 

_This is fucking killing me._ “I should be going I’ve stayed too long anyway.” 

“Yeah thanks… sorry about all this,” Eren told him and watched Levi retreat out the door. _I wish I understood him._

\--- 

When Levi returned he found Eren alone sitting at the top of the stairs on the phone. _Why isn’t he inside his apartment?_

“Hey!” Eren perked up, “Yeah he’s here I’ll talk to you later.” 

“ _Be careful Eren_ ,” Armin’s voice floated into the air as Eren hung up. 

“What’s going on?” Levi asked suspiciously. 

“I just thought that maybe you could show me how you find people… my lab’s closed for right now,” Eren smiled. 

“What happened?” 

“Some dumb kid got calcium chloride all over the labs,” Eren shrugged and hastily added, “she’s okay though.” 

Levi gave no inkling that he was even concerned about the student, humming in response, “Alright I can show you if you really want to know. It’s not very interesting.” 

“It sounds fascinating,” Eren followed him to his apartment curiously. He had only been in here once before and if he remembered correctly he was looking at half naked Levi most of the time; so it was hardly a surprise that nothing looked familiar. 

The wood floors weren’t any different except for the lack of rugs and polished gleam; it seemed this apartment was a studio with Levi’s bed off in the far corner (unmade and a little messier than Eren would have expected) and his kitchen on the opposite wall. In the center was the wide L shaped couch that he had been on just a few days before. The thought of that short time together took his breath away. _I can’t think about that… what if I… Oh shit he’s talking._

“...get your computer?” Levi snapped his fingers. 

“Huh?” 

“Why don’t you go get your computer so we can do this? You think I write it down with pen on pizza stained paper, asswagon?” 

“N-No I’ll go do that!” Eren stuttered and hurried back to his apartment. _Was that a jab at me?_

Eren found himself lost in the whole situation, watching Levi work was magical, he browsed websites and made little notes on the board he’d produced. A web of connections and potential matches for the names he’d been given. Eren wondered just how he’d gathered so much information in such a short time, standing in front of the web and folding his arms over his chest. He could see that some of the lines had multiple connections; and where Marco and Jean were had enough pins and ink lines drawn to them Eren understood how his system worked to some degree. 

“Are you just going to sit there and stare, fuckface? Didja get bored?” Levi’s voice broke his concentration and Eren looked over curiously. 

“No I just… I was thinking about how complicated all this is,” he replied. 

“Well I keep thinking about getting a drink,” Levi stood up. 

“With me?” Eren pointed to himself, dumbfounded. 

“No, by myself shitpidgeon.” 

And that was how he found himself sitting in a dimly lit bar near their complex ordering his fourth beer of the night, “So how did you even get into this stuff?” 

“This stuff?” Levi swirled his bourbon before sipping it. Eren’s turquoise eyes were blown wide in the dark of the bar and Levi couldn’t help but hear the soft moans pressed against his ear, the way the boy in his dreams caught his blunt nails on his shoulder blades. 

“Yeah I mean… finding people? You know how did you put everybody on Google Alert and all that?” Eren asked, “What is it you do anyway? I always see you come and go but I don’t know what your business is.” 

“One question at a time,” Levi replied and ordered another glass, “My father was a cop. Ex-military and all that shit. Unhappy guy. But what little time we spent together was dedicated to stakeouts.” 

“Oh… Wow…” Eren blinked. 

“Yeah it’s not that impressive, as for what my work is…” He released a bark of a laugh as Eren’s beer arrived. 

“Is that stuff even any good?” Eren asked of the bourbon and Levi hummed. 

“Here try some, it’s not half bad,” Levi slid it across the table. This felt familiar too, reaching his foot out to brush against Eren’s calf beneath the table, curve his toes back against his achilles tendon. He was surprised when Eren didn’t draw away, but the draft beers that kept coming from the bartender behind the counter so he shouldn’t have been. 

Oh the way his lips curled around the edge of the tumbler, the way his adam’s apple bobbed as he sipped the honeyed liquid down, the way his tongue flicked out over his damp lips. 

He wanted to bang his head on the table, did this idiot even have any idea of what he was doing? 

Eren had to be the boy from his dreams. 

There was no way anyone could resemble him so, could make him feel as frustrated, could be as comfortable. _Eren._ He’d said his name in his dreams, felt his skin under his mouth, and fought tirelessly by his side. _Eren._

But he couldn’t have this Eren. Not the way he wanted. He was too focused on finding someone. 

He smirked as Eren plowed forward in speaking, sadness spilling into his chest. 

Wasn’t that how it always was? 

Eren ran tirelessly towards something, obsessed and determined. Levi ran after him as best he could, knowing it would never be him Eren was running towards. 

He drank too much, drowning his thoughts in whatever solace alcohol could provide as they talked away the evening about almost anything Eren could summon to mind, losing himself in the green ring of Eren’s irises and the way his brows creased when he talked about something he didn’t understand. 

He didn’t surprise himself either when they managed to drag their sorry carcasses up eight flights of stairs, giggling the whole way, and kissed on Levi’s doorstep. 

Their third kiss was _frenzied_. 

Levi found himself gasping for the hot air between them as Eren shoved him up against the door. Levi licked at his mouth to keep him from going too far as he tangled his fingers into the boy’s brown hair, groaning heatedly when Eren rutted their hips together; desperately seeking friction. 

_How long’s he been sitting there with that hard on? He’s got some alcohol tolerance._ He fumbled for the keys to his door, nearly dropping them, but Eren caught them up and before he knew it they were tumbling inside and Eren was tugging off his jacket and throwing it to the side. 

“That’s Arma--” he half-heartedly protested before Eren had slotted his mouth hard against his again. _Whatever._ He lost himself in sensations he’d only felt in his dreams: the way Eren’s slender fingers pulled at the band of his jeans, how they felt when they climbed up his spine and traced out his shoulderblade, the look of lust in those blown eyes as he pulled his shirt off. 

“You’re beautiful,” Eren said hazily and Levi snorted, but there was a pleased sort of feeling bleeding into his heart as he caught his sweatshirt and henley and dragged them both off in one swift movement, mouth finding the bare skin of his chest the moment it was available. 

_I know how this goes_ , he thought, as he pushed Eren down onto the unmade bed. _I know what it’s like to feel this warmth._ He kissed him again, rough and possessive with each bite to his lip as his thumbs rolled over his nipples and had the boy arching up into his touch. 

_I know what to do to make him moan._

He caught a nipple in his mouth and tortured it; biting and sucking mercilessly as his fingers worked the other, trading when Eren was quivering between his thighs. He left lovebites, hard sucks to his neck and teeth on his shoulders as he stroked his fingers over the flat plane of his stomach and sank them into the loose waist of his jeans. 

“L-Levi!” He heard his voice sob lightly as he rubbed his thumbs over the hard edges of his hips, dipping his tongue into the cut of muscle along his navel. “Oh Levi…” He moaned when Levi mouthed at him lazily through his underwear, jeans cast carelessly to the side. He almost admired how desperately his dick strained against its confinement; damp and achingly hard beneath his tongue as he wet the fabric and groaned at the sound of Eren’s whimpers. 

There was nothing quite like freeing him and hearing the moan of relief, watching his erection spring up; heavy and thick. _Taking full fucking advantage of this, eh?_ He licked him base to tip, flicking his tongue against the corona as his thumb traced up his raphe, he was hot and musky against his tongue as he dipped his head into his mouth for only a moment… nearly laughing when Eren’s hips jerked. 

“Patience,” his voice was absolutely wrecked. He didn’t even recognize himself as he reached for his bedside table, opening the lube there. “You’ve done this before?” He took the chance to unfasten his jeans, groaning softly at the release of pressure. 

Eren’s half nod was enough for him to coat his fingers and trace them against his perineum as he caught his testicles with his tongue, licking against the sensitive skin and earning another shaking sob. He slid the first digit of his first finger in as he caught the base of his cock between his fingers and dipped his head into his mouth again. 

Eren bucked his hips up, catching his heels on the bed as Levi let him slide into his mouth further, licking and sucking every inch he could fit, finger working the rest of the way in. Eren was swamped sensation, every inch of him humming and aching in desperation as Levi’s head bobbed between his thighs. All he could fucking do was catch his fingers in the sheets and pray as Levi offered a twist to his base with each fresh slide of his mouth. _Jesus how does he know--_ He managed half a thought before stars burst in his eyes. 

_There it is_. His fingers had found his prostate and that was all they sought next as he scissored them and stretched him, almost blind with desire. _What am I worrying about? It’s just a one time fuck. Tomorrow morning he’ll wake up and hate himself._ He hit it again when Eren cried out, scrabbling on the sheets for purchase. 

“Not yet,” Levi was panting as he caught a hold on his cock, jerking his pants off so hard the stitches popped. “Not yet don’t you dare,” he growled. Eren tried for the condom, fingers shaking with effort, but Levi slapped him away and tore it open with his teeth. “You’re too far gone,” he wasn’t sure he couldn’t say the same thing about himself, sliding in the first inch with little trouble. _Go slow._ He had to remind himself, but Eren was already wrapping his legs around his waist and pulling him in as deep as he could go. _I’m still fucking standing, brat._ The final combination of their bodies together was almost too much for him, stilling for a moment as Eren adjusted, the boy’s hands catching on his shoulders. 

It was a position so familiar Levi almost sobbed. 

Then he moved: snapping his hips in with each drag out, letting Eren sink his teeth into his shoulder and suck his neck as he moaned against his ear. 

God the rhythm. The feeling of each thrust into him, each unison groan, each timed shift of his hips and absolutely fucking perfect noises Eren made… he wasn’t even sure if this was real anymore. 

If he was just in another desperate dream clinging to a boy that could take his life. 

He could almost hear the ticking of a clock, the sound of a second passing, the rhythm of a metronome keeping time on a chance that was slipping between his fingers like the fine sand of an hourglass. 

_Please._ The bite of Eren’s teeth on his shoulder as he came, hand stroking him to completion, sank into his body. _Please just let this be real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Backseat Serenade" by All Time Low.


	9. Hold on. Daylight is coming.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. Eren's regrets. Levi's hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I wrote you all another chapter 8D You're getting a mini chap tomorrow or Sunday most likely as well. Some lovely Mikasa and WHAT THE HELL HAS SHE BEEN UP TO ALL THIS TIME?!
> 
> Anyway so here you go. The terrible aftermath of drunk sex.
> 
> Don't do it kids.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, series: tbh

He woke to a splitting headache and the tickle of fingers against the skin of his solar plexus. The last thing he wanted to do was open his heavy-lidded eyes. If he did the sensation might disappear. Instead he found a body half sprawled over his, naked back rising and falling with each breath.

_It wasn’t a dream._

He rolled onto his side and Eren adjusted in his sleep, one arm outstretched as he shifted half onto his side. _Eren._ He couldn’t help but think his name or stop the images of his body undulating beneath him from flooding into his mind and crashing into each other in a violent disarray of past and present.

_This was real._

He reached out and touched the side of his face to watch the way his dark lashes fluttered against his cheekbones, brushing his thumb against Eren’s cheek. As he watched him wake Levi felt something well up in his chest; the first and faint feelings of an emotion he would later come to describe with a word he hadn't used in years.

_“I’m going to find him again, he’s everything, I won’t be able to look him in the eyes… and tell him I love him if I sleep with you.”_

“You sure have a lot of romantic ideas, Jaeger,” Levi murmured and watched the glint of jade beneath his lids as he stirred, chest aching.

“Hmm?” Eren lifted his head, searching out the etched frame of Levi’s body for a moment. _What happened last night?_ Memories started to slip into frame as fingers tangled into his long bangs and pushed his hair back from his face.

“Are you hungover?” His deep voice reverberated like a purr, sending jolts of electricity down Eren’s body.

“We… we slept together,” he expected panic to rise in his chest, fear or loathing or disappointment… but the only disappointment he felt was in himself for not feeling those things. For feeling so damned _comfortable_ with this man at this moment.

Levi, on the other hand, was nothing but disappointed, “Yes it was--”

“A mistake… I made a mistake,” Eren cut him off and Levi passed his hand over his face. “I’m sorry I…”

“No it’s fine I understand,” Levi murmured and sat up. _You knew this would happen what are you acting like a kid about it?_ He asked himself.

All he wanted was Eren. Desperately. He wanted to tell him about his dreams and confess that’d he’d seen him… tell him that all he’d had to fight for before Eren was his own survival and then this idiot kid showed up and changed everything… had given him hope again.

And that he’d done it again, the same as ever, showing up to ruin everything with his stupid smile and idiotic determination to crush everything in his path on his way to his goal.

Collateral damage was right.

“You probably have homework to do, right?” Levi asked as Eren staggered out of the bed, hungover and bruised. His tanned chest and shoulders were peppered with dark hickies and bite marks, one particularly vicious one stood proud and black just beneath his ear and Levi bit his bottom lip to keep from making any noise. _He’s going to think of me all day now._ He felt pleased.

“Yeah I… you know… this relationship is… we should just keep it professional okay?” Eren jerked his pants on. “I think… I think that’s the best idea.”

“Do you?” There was a twinge of sadness in Levi’s voice, “What are you going to do if I don’t make you coffee every day?”

“Make it myself.”

Well that hurt like a knife to the chest. Levi looked stricken as Eren glanced at him, fiddling awkwardly with the edge of the blankets. _That was unexpected._ He shivered imperceptibly, breathing shallow. Why did it hurt this bad? The easy dismissal?

“I’m sorry… I need to find him before I can do anything,” Eren murmured. “I love him so much, Levi, I hope you can understand that… now I… can’t…”

“It’s just sex, don’t get all worked up about it. Whoever this guy is isn’t going to resent you because you fucked somebody,” Levi tapped a cigarette out of the carton stashed in his bedside table.

“I… didn’t know you smoked…”

“I don’t often,” Levi took a drag and leaned back against his pillows. Anything to soothe his frayed nerves at this moment. “Get out of here, then, christ you’re the worst one night stand ever.” _There’s no need to be that cruel, Levi, you knew what was going to happen._

Eren felt a pang of sadness but turned, “Are you… still going to do it?”

“Jesus brat get the hell out of my house, as long as you keep paying me I’ll help you find your god damned prince.”

“Okay…” Eren glanced back at him once more before walking out the door and shutting it quietly behind him.

“What did you expect, Levi?” He murmured to himself, the dry burn of cigarette smoke filling his lungs and making him ache in better ways than the pain in his heart. “Did you think he’d suddenly throw his arms around you? Confess his desperate love? As if suddenly everything came flooding back just from one night?” He laughed bitterly and drew back on his cigarette until his lungs were filled with the foul gases. _You knew that would never happen._

\---

Eren spent that day in a haze, too hungover and angry with himself to move, and when Mikasa came over that evening to check on him she scowled.

“What the hell are you doing?” She asked him as she walked in, finding him curled up on his couch with tired eyes. “Eren!”

“D-Don’t shout so loud!” Eren murmured over his shoulder, gasping when she caught her fingers in his hair.

“What is this?” She examined the hickies on his neck, “Did you get drunk last night?”

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

“Eren Jaeger!” She scolded, “What did you do last night?”

“I made a mistake,” he murmured. “Mikasa I don’t know what to do,” he sat up as her fingers loosened from his hair.

“What’s… what’s wrong?” The despair in his voice made her heart ache. “Is it Marco?”

“No I… Mikasa I think I’ve made a horrible mistake…” he said again and she knelt in front of him.

“What do you mean?” She caught his face in her cool hands and he closed his eyes, relaxing slightly.

“I just… I think I hurt a friend of mine this morning…”

“I hope you’re not talking about Levi because if that bastard got you drunk and--”

“I went to the bar with him and we drank together, he was so much more open that way, he talked to me about stuff I didn’t know about him…”

“Oh no… Eren…” There was a note of realization in those words.

“I can’t… be with anyone. I have to… I need to find him more than anything. I love him more than… I know I do. I promised I’d…”

“What?” Mikasa’s brows sank.

“I promised him…” _Peppermint tea._ He smelled it again, tasted it on his tongue, he wondered where it came from… who fixed it and why.

_“Promise me, Eren, that you’ll find me again.”_

_“But--”_

_“No buts. Promise me. Tell me right now,”_ Eren could feel him peeling the titan flesh back from his tired body.

_“I can’t… what if…”_

_“This can’t be the end,”_ his Captain’s voice broke as he pulled Eren into a one armed hug, cradling the back of his neck and sliding his fingers into his hair. _“Promise me Eren,”_ his voice was harsh and broken again Eren’s ear.

 _“I’ll find you…”_ He wrapped his arms around him, the sounds of the ocean washing up around them. He couldn’t even feel the cold bite of saltwater anymore, the warmth of his Captain’s body against his… he couldn’t feel his heartbeat fading.

“Eren?” Mikasa shook him. She was terrified by the wide eyed unfocused look in his eyes, by the tears streaming down his face. “Eren talk to me!”

“I promised!” He sobbed, “I promised him and I can’t… fucking… find him!” She threw her arms around him in shock, cradling his sobs against her chest. “A-All these years I… I could have been looking a-and I… I wasted them!”

Mikasa didn’t know what to say, how to console him, if there even was a way to heal a millennia old wound. All she could do for now was hold him close, let him fight against whatever demons still haunted him… and talk, “You didn’t waste them, Eren, you’ve lived a great life. You’re intelligent and handsome and well educated! You’ve just been… you’ve just been working towards a point where you’re ready to find him! You couldn’t have found him before because you weren’t ready… now you are and all you have to do is keep searching…”

“How long do I have to look?” Eren murmured against her breast, body shuddering as he tried to breathe. “Wh-What do I have to do? What if I never find him? What if this… what if this has ruined everything?”

“You will…” Mikasa whispered, nestling her face against his hair, “I promise… you’ll find him.”

Levi looked down at the ground outside the cracked door, leaning against the wall of the hallway with a soft sigh. Even now… He figured he should apologize… should say something to Eren. _I’ve hurt him now._ He sipped the tea from his cup and closed his eyes.

There was one thing that Levi hadn’t thought about before.

_“I can’t do this… you know that…”_

_“I won’t be able to look him in the eyes… and tell him I love him if I sleep with you.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

They were all directed at him. His heart skipped a beat at the thought. _What were you trying to tell me, brat?_ He wondered. Did this mean… did all of this pain and torture for both of them just mean Eren was attracted to him? That there was something more than just an easy rapport and drunken sex?

 _I remember you, Eren, why haven't you remembered me?_ He passed his hand over his face and rubbed his brow. _  
_

_”Promise me.”_

_”Tell me right now.”_

_"I love you."_

\---

Eren lifted his head groggily as he heard his phone ring from the depths of his pillows, blinking stupidly at the bright screen he read who the text was from and felt his heart swell. _Levi’s talking to me again?_

**Are you awake brat?**

Why did that make him feel so happy? Why did this two day hiatus of freshly brewed coffee and good natured insults make his heart ache so badly? _I can’t like him this way… god damn it Eren._ He shoved his face into the pillow but was forced to look up when his phone jingled again.

**I found Springer**

Well that was news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Daylight" by Remedy Drive.


	10. Because I can't forget you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Springles part one. Sasha and Connie make their first appearance. More plot is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun chapter this time, I'm hoping that I may have another chapter of this fic up this weekend but don't quote me on it. 
> 
> A NEW ARC HAS APPEARED.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, series: tbh

_I'm just going to give up..._ Mikasa fell to her knees before the monster that would be her end. 

_"What am I supposed to do without you?"_ She asked the titan, grey eyes burning. _"How do I survive? What's my reason for... What's my purpose without you?"_ The sound of a roar had her turning in a blur. 

Flying. She was soaring through the air. The pressure of her belts ripped at her flesh as she whirled between trees, hot panic and cold anger burning her lungs as she cut the monster apart in her mind, _"Give him back you bitch!"_

Blood, trickling down her face as she was carried by a soft touch and a hot hand, fingers the size of her body curled around her like a cage against the gentle movements of a monster. 

The sound of an inhuman cry sent chills down her spine. Haunting and terrifying it echoed even as she opened her eyes to the dark of her apartment. The sounds of screaming and that same horrible roar echoed in the room as she shivered, sweat sliding down her neck in the pale light from the street. 

_What the hell was that?_ Mikasa caught the fabric of her top between shaking fingers, trying to calm her beating heart. 

\--- 

"So what are you going to do about it?" Levi's eyes never flickered from the snow dripping down the plexiglass, looking out at the other buildings with gloomy grey reflections of the already dismal day. _Everything is dismal it seems._ Avoiding the question seemed like a better idea than answering it, but to tactfully shoot down the man in his office was difficult without counterattack. 

"I'm going to do nothing," his laced fingers provided a resting place for his chin as his heavy lidded eyes traced the frenzied race between two droplets of half-liquified snow down the window. 

"How unlike you," he chuckled. His voice was like thunder, drawling and sensual, crawling over Levi's skin and digging down deep until his muscles itched. 

"Erwin now isn't the time," Levi muttered, "He's got something else to do." 

"When will you let me meet this titanic crush of yours?" 

"Punny, Christ you're such an asswipe." 

"Crabby," he clucked, "Are you smoking again?" Erwin's voice was amused at best, delighted at worst. He always seemed to be in the best mood when Levi was at his worst. 

"I don't think that's any of your business, shithead," he pulled the mauled pen out of his mouth and tossed it into the trash. As if his oral fixation wasn't obvious. He turned his chair just enough to catch a glimpse of his superior's grinning face. "You're just full of fucking smarm today, what did you pick up two eights last night?" 

"Nines but regardless I'm just enjoying how this little game has turned on you, you can't be sure if he remembers you and if you say something he could start to mistrust you. He could start to wonder why you didn't say something earlier," his shoulders shook as he laughed. 

"I can't be sure telling him will even trigger a memory at this point, I'm not in his damned head. Besides I..." 

Erwin hummed. "Let me meet him." 

"No. And if you're not careful I'm going to turn you into an armless wonder again," he twirled the dagger of a letter opener around his fingers. 

"What are you so worried about? That he'll go looking himself?" His grin flickered when the letter opener whizzed by his cheek. A line of blood coagulated and dripped down his cheekbone as Levi's weapon of choice stilled in the plaster wall of his office. 

"I'll kill you if you go anywhere near him," the dark haired man's voice was a growl, low and feral. Predatory. His superior's eyes widened around the smallest rings of sky blue, fight or flight response pumping adrenaline into his beating heart. 

For the longest moment the office was quiet, even the clerks outside the room waited with bated breath, coffee machine the only sound as it dripped a fresh pot against the hissing of rapidly heated water. 

"Fine," Erwin finally said and Levi steeled his jaw triumphantly, "Just know that eventually he'll ask directly. He's going to ask why there are people on your list you haven't let him meet. Why you're hiding things from him." 

"Let him ask," his slate eyes flickered down as Erwin tossed the letter opener into the desk. 

"Show your temper like that again and I'll have you on the streets," Erwin threatened, "Again." 

Levi felt the tension recede just slightly as Erwin's smiled flickered back to life, "You think too much of yourself." 

"You think too little of me," Erwin said darkly and walked out with a hand in his pocket, "I'll make the decisions I have to." 

The closing of the door brought relief and a flood of anger, "You'll make decisions without considering anyone else." _Collateral damage._

\--- 

"Are you sure about this?" Mikasa asked, casting a sideways glance into the ancient elevator her brother was already well on his way into. 

"Yes, come on sis it'll be fine," he wheedled, triumphant when she stepped into the rickety transport. 

"Eren," she looked up at him seriously, "I want--" she faltered. _Am I really starting to remember? Or am I just dreaming about what I've been told?_ Furrowed brows elicited a response and her brother gripped her shoulder with a hard hand. 

"What's wrong?" The long tendrils of his hair clung to his damp, flushed cheekbones and temples, angled nose driving hard at her memories. 

"I can remember things, I think," she felt his thumb tighten on her collarbone, see the light in his eyes flicker brighter. 

“Are you serious? What are you remembering?” Eren asked breathlessly as the elevator began to move. 

“I… just some stuff with the maneuver gear and all that… and like… there was this… thing,” her eyes searched a stain on the ground. “This sound that,” thinking about it took her breath away again. 

“What kind of sound Mikasa?” Eren pressed and she looked down between them, shaking her head. 

“It was… I think it was a titan,” she murmured, “It was terrifying but… I wasn’t afraid of it.” 

Eren’s chest rose and fell with each shallow breath, skin hot to the touch. The unfocused look in his eyes made Mikasa grab him tightly to keep him from falling, holding him close, “Eren?” She crooned, stroking his hair. 

“Don’t eat a valuable witness you idiot,” _he could hear him. Hear his voice muffled through the thick flesh of his titan body, feel his blades freeing him from the restraints of flesh._

_He was warm._

“P-Please come back,” _he curled against the fabric of the shirt in his hands. Soft and worn between his small fingers, it still smelled like him._ “L-Levi please…” _He sniffled and buried his nose into the collar of the shirt._

Eren’s eyes snapped open and he was blinded when he smacked foreheads with someone that had been leaning over him, knocking them clean off their feet, “Mikasa!? Mikasa what’s going on?” 

“I’m right here,” she caught his hand as a groan rose from the floor, “So is Connie look!” She smiled as the man on the floor sat up, one eye closed tightly. 

“Jesus you have a thick skull kid, you’d think I’d remember that,” he grimaced. His short hair was shaved into a mohawk, cloth bracelets and leather bands around both wrists, worn band t-shirt stretched just slightly over the lines of muscles. 

“Is he awake? Oh my god what are you doing on the floor?” Someone else Eren recognized poured out of the kitchen with worry on her face. Her long brown hair was curled and soft around her face, but there was no mistaking her: Sasha Braus. 

“Sasha too!” Eren sounded delighted despite the headache. “What happened?” He wondered, watching Sasha lift Connie to his feet. “You’re both… here…” 

“Of course we are dumb dumb, what do you think?” She grinned, the ring on her finger glinting bright in the evening sun. 

“You’re… engaged?” Eren asked dumbly, accepting the ice pack that he’d upset. 

“Yes! We’re going to be married in December! Wow this is so fortuitous,” she laced her fingers through Connie’s as he sat down to nurse his head, sliding her free hand through his mohawk lovingly. “I was just saying a few days ago…” 

“Heh,” Connie squeezed her hand. “You really were that’s… what an odd coincidence.” 

“You remember me?” Eren asked breathlessly. “You remember us?” 

“Of course we do dipshit,” Connie offered a grin, “We’ve known for years that we… were together before.” He looked up at her, devotion and adoration bright in his eyes. 

_“SASHA!”_ Eren heard his scream, the splitting of bones and flesh, the heavy noise of a body hitting the ground… the ragged scream of a lover’s broken heart. 

"We promised we'd meet again," Sasha murmured as he pressed his face against her navel, curling her fingers into his hair, "You never really left me behind." Eren could see his broken smile. _He remembers his death._

A sniff filled the air, Eren’s head whipping around to find tears dripping down his sister’s face, “Mikasa!” 

“Oh honey it’s okay,” Sasha laughed softly as she wrapped her arms around Mikasa gently. 

“It’s just… so sweet!” Mikasa’s chest felt empty, hollow in the presence of the two so deeply in love they found each other in the next life. _Did I ever have that?_ She hugged her back. “This is all so strange…” 

“Yeah it really is isn’t it?” Connie laughed. “I never expected either of you on our doorstep.” 

“Tell me! Do you… remember somebody… I can’t remember someone and I… I’m trying to find them,” Eren asked desperately before he could forget. 

“Yeah who is it?” Connie asked and Eren looked crestfallen. “Eren?” 

“I… it’s just that… I can’t remember him,” he murmured. 

“Him? Uhm… Armin? Jean? Th-There’s Erwin and…” Connie struggled a little after that. 

“What about Marco?” Sasha suggested. Mikasa’s face paled as she looked at Eren, gauging the way his fingers trembled laced together. The bob of his adam’s apple when he swallowed. 

“We found Marco and Jean,” Mikasa murmured. 

\--- 

Levi sipped his bourbon and propped his feet up on the table, light from the kitchen glinting on the slick surface of the photograph. He could remember the day it was taken, a plastic kiddie pool had been filled with water by an impatient 5 year old with no front teeth. He’d been wheedled into sitting in the lukewarm water while said five year old spilled buckets over his head, grinning when the picture was taken with his arm tucked around the boy with the bucket on his head. 

He chuckled. Patience had only been his virtue for a short while, now it was frayed at the edges and desperately clinging for respite on the edge of a chasm of stupidity. _I just have to remember it’s better this way._

He rose, dropping his glass on the table with a thunk, before slipping his tie off and walking into the hallway. There was a slight chance that Eren would be back, he could have sworn he’d heard him earlier half-yelling, half-singing songs from 2001. He pushed the door open and affection bubbled in his chest at the sight. 

Eren was never the one to make it to the bed when he fell asleep. He was cuddled close to a pillow in his arms, sweatpants low on his hips. Levi could still see the faintest remnants of their night together on his skin, he smiled vaguely and walked over to pull the blanket bunched around his knees over his shoulder. 

“Huh?” Tanned fingers caught his hand as it neared his face and Levi’s heart stopped. “Levi?” Groggy green eyes found his face as Levi brushed his long hair away. “What are you doing?” 

“I was just checking on you, nobody else does anymore, did you find Springer?” He sat on the edge of the couch, letting Eren accommodate him. 

“Yeah, and Sasha.” 

“That’s one more person off the list, then,” somehow it was forgotten, everything that had passed between them in the last five days. All the anger and frustration that their mistake had brought, now seemed so far away in each other’s company. 

When Eren’s fingers curled their way sleepily into his, when his head drooped onto his shoulder, when he fell asleep curled up in Levi’s arms… it made everything worth it. All the heartache, all the pain, every last lie he’s ever had to tell to keep his secret. 

It was worth it to just hold him this way for a little while, with the warmth of his breath bleeding through the thin fabric of his button down. 

It was all worth it because for a moment he could pretend this was the way they were supposed to be again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Lonely Lullaby" by Owl City.
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


	11. I gave you my word and I gave you my life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HALLOWEEN SPECIAL. What really happened? What's going on in Levi's head? What isn't he telling him and why doesn't he want Eren to know who he is?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. This is our first introduction of Levi and Eren's past in a whole different way. I hope you enjoy and I promise you won't be confused when chapter 12 comes around. It'd be no fun if I just straight up told you. :)
> 
> CHAPTER TITLE INSPIRED BY "OH CHILD" BY NEVERTHELESS AND YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO IT WHILE YOU READ SO YOU CAN BREAK YOUR HEART LIKE I DID.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, series: tbh

"But Growlithe doesn't make any sense, Eren," he protested weakly. 

"Grrrrowlithe~" The blue eyed boy insisted as he scribbled over the picture he'd been drawing on the low table. 

"Eren--" he reached over to take the red crayon, tweaking his ear. 

"GRRR~" the boy caught Levi's sleeve between his teeth and jerked his head back and forth. 

"Jesus brat; you're an animal," he said and ruffled his soft brown hair. "Okay, okay it won't make sense but Growlithe it is," his heart jumped at his smile. What he wouldn't give to see that boy's smile for the rest of his life. 

October’s maple days had rolled around without any ideas for Halloween costumes and 17 year old Levi was left trying to pick out costumes with a five year old monster child. He curled his arm around Eren’s lithe waist and pulled him into his lap, holding him down when he tried to wriggle away, “Let me see what you’re up to.” 

“Are you going to be Ash?” Eren shoved the paper away from his keeper. “Pleeasssseee!” 

“Kiddo there’s no way in hell you’re going to--Hey! You brat!” He snatched the paper up as Eren giggled. His heart sank when he saw the scribbled images. Weak at best in resemblance to the images in his head, a child’s interpretation of bloodshed, but Levi had no trouble deciphering the meaning. 

“Levi?” Turquoise eyes searched his face, small hands fisting in his shirt. “I know you said I shouldn’t anymore but I just… I thought it was cool! See here’s you!” He pointed eagerly. “You got rid of all the monsters right!?” 

“Yeah bright eyes, I did…” he caught his fingers in his hair, blood cold in his veins. 

_How much is he starting to remember?_ Certainly his mind wasn’t capable of understanding or comprehending so many of the images he saw, certainly he didn’t remember what Levi did… 

“You’re my hero!” Eren threw his arms up and Levi narrowly avoided being slapped in his face. 

“Well your hero thinks you smell bad, let’s have a bath alright?” 

“No!” Eren demanded, trying to scamper away before Levi could recover. 

“Don’t even think about it!” Levi tackled him and they landed in a heap on the bedroom floor, Eren in screaming hysterics as he pressed his feet against Levi’s chest, trying to keep him from tickling him. “I’m not even touching you!” He laughed in response as Eren flailed, joy infectious. 

\--- 

“Hey! We’re having a Halloween party next weekend do you want to come?” Eren asked as they descended the stairs together, Levi adjusting his scarf around his neck. 

“Halloween with a bunch of drunk college students? I think I’ll pass,” he replied sourly. 

“You’re no fun,” he chuckled. 

“Neither are trashed coeds puking their glitter-lined guts out into a shitter before I’m forced to bounce their asses onto the street, so dont ask again,” Levi tweaked his earlobe and Eren looked surprised. 

“Huh…” he furrowed his brows, then smiled vaguely. Deja vu was something he was used to at this point. “Hey… do you know anyone that drinks peppermint tea?” Eren asked curiously. 

“Mmm my mother did, I picked up the habit,” Levi answered and Eren furrowed his brows. 

“Oh… damn well I thought maybe…” Levi’s heart leapt into his throat at his pause, at the way Eren’s brows knitted in the middle. _Why do I need you to remember me so badly? When that’s the only thing I didn’t want all along?_

“You thought… what?” 

“I just… it seems really familiar, like someone in my dreams used to drink it… or put…” 

“Mint leaves,” he offered perhaps a little more helpfully than he should have. _I used to put mint leaves in my tea you god damned idiot._

“Huh, yeah maybe it was mint leaves in the tea… oh okay well never mind I’m sorry,” Eren murmured. 

Levi deflated, “Sure.” He stepped off the last step and adjusted his scarf again. “See you later, kid.” 

“Bye,” Eren traced his fingertip over the collar of his t-shirt. He wondered where he’d dug it up from, why he remembered it… what was happening to him? 

_What do you want Levi? What the fuck do you even want anymore?_ His forehead banged against the steering wheel. _You left for this reason. You left and here he fucking is again and you should have left again before all this happened. You should have vanished from his life instead of biting on that fucking line._

_Do you want him to remember or not? You’ve got to make a god damned choice._

_I’m afraid of what will happen when he does._

\--- 

“LEVI!” He heard the screaming when he opened the back door, catching the blur of orange and brown up in his arms, grinning at the screams of delight. “LEVI! ARE YOU READY!?” 

“I’m right here, brat, don’t yell!” Levi perched him on his arm, letting him wind his arms around his neck. 

“You wore it!” Eren gasped, peering under Levi’s hat brim at his grey eyes curiously. “You even wore the jacket!” 

“Well you told me to be Ash okay? So here I am, I’m Ash,” he smiled at Karla. “Hi Mrs. Jaeger,” he hoisted Eren a little higher. 

“Be careful, alright,” she handed over Eren’s candy bag. “Don’t let him eat too much he’ll get a stomach ache.” 

“Of course, the costume came out great,” he looked over Eren’s onesie, chest fur fluffed and sewn over padding to make it stand out above the zipper, hood hanging around his shoulders. “Here we go,” he pulled the hood up and Eren’s ears sprang to life, the tuft between them standing at attention. 

“Do you like it?” Eren asked shyly, small hands pulling at his ears. 

“Of course, bright eyes,” he thumbed his nose affectionately. “C’mon we’re gonna go get some candy, are you gonna walk the whole time?” 

“Yeah!” Eren cheered as Levi set him on his feet. 

“You better, because I’m not carrying you home,” Eren’s tiny fingers worked their way into his fist. 

As if he didn’t know better. 

\--- 

Levi could hear the party in the apartment across the landing, stretching lazily on his business call, “You could be over there spending time with him instead of pouting about this.” 

“Shut up,” he replied. 

“Levi you can’t run forever, you’ve got to admit to yourself that he deserves to know,” her voice was irritating against his roughed up skull. 

“I ignore your calls for a reason, Hanji.” 

“So why did you answer this time?” 

“I was bored.” 

“You wanted someone to complain to about a problem your 19 year old self created, right?” She asked pointedly. 

“Rub it in my face, then.” 

“Look you’re my best friend--” 

“I’m your only friend.” 

“I have more friends than just you, arrogant jerk,” she sounded even more frustrated when he chuckled. “Don’t laugh! Stop turning this around on me, you confided in me years ago and I’m here to tell you that you’re being a certifiable idiot.” 

“You’re a freak of nature,” he sighed when he heard someone’s excitable shriek from outside. “Sounds like those idiots have gotten out of hand.” 

“Gonna go bounce them out?” 

“What do I look like? A matador? There’s no way in hell I’m breaking up that brat’s party,” he scowled. 

“I think you’re more of a rodeo clown,” Hanji grinned. 

“That’s it I’m done.” 

“LEVI YOU NEED TO FACE THE FACTS!” She yelled as he slapped his computer closed. 

_She and Erwin are the same old story…_ He buried his face in his hands. What the hell was he supposed to do? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. If he was stronger, if he could just say no to that damned kid… 

If only he didn’t love him so god damned much. 

\--- 

Eren tucked his face into the crook of Levi’s neck, fingers wound into his undercut as they walked, “Are you asleep?” 

“Nhmm…” he lifted his head, turquoise eyes half lidded. “Levi~” he purred as his hood slipped off his hair. 

“I thought so,” he sighed. _Is all this really okay?_ He flinched when Eren’s hand tugged his hair, trying to keep balance as he rubbed his eye. _Is it okay that I have him like this? That he’s growing up with me this way?_

“Are you okay?” His small voice asked sleepily, “You keep looking at me all sad.” 

“Am I? I’m sorry I just keep thinking about how we can’t be Ash and Growlithe all the time,” he adjusted him against his hip. 

“No but we’re always Captain Levi and Eren Jaeger! Swash--swashb--” he hesitated. 

“Swashbucklers,” he could have cried right then. _What have I done?_ The closer Eren came, the more he understood about what they were and who they had been… the closer he came to learning the truth. “Yeah we’ll always be together.” 

“Really?!” Eren yawned. “We’ll be a team, just the two of us!” He cuddled his face against his neck, letting Levi adjust him to his other arm. “We’ll always be together because I love Levi most!” 

“I love you, too, Eren.” 

“Good. I wouldn’t forgive you… if you dint…” Eren trailed off as his breathing evened out again, warm in his Captain’s arms. 

_I’m getting in too deep here, aren’t I?_ He nestled his cheek against the boy’s soft hair, the scent of his favorite Spiderman shampoo clinging to the strands. He smelled like love. Love that he wasn’t even sure he deserved. He smelled like a boy whose dreams had come true. Like warmth and affection and sweet, desperate innocence. 

Innocence he’d give anything to protect. 

Even Eren. 

He would even give Eren. 

\--- 

Levi walked over to the other apartment and pushed the door open. There were solo cups and empty bottles strewn on the tables, crushed beer cans cascaded from the trash can, the scent of that nasty pizza Eren seemed to like so much clung heady against his nostrils. 

_What have you turned into?_ He smiled vaguely as he started to clear up the shit Eren’s friends had left behind. _Certainly this isn’t the same boy I knew._ He chuckled, bagging up every last bit of trash, lost in his thoughts as he scraped things out from between the pillows of the couch. 

Eren staggered from the bathroom, bracing himself against the door frame to his bedroom, eyes green against the frames of his glasses. _Well he’s late but at least he’s here._

Levi was jolted from his thoughts when his fingers curled into the fabric of something familiar, peeling it out from between the pillows. _Eren was sleeping with this._ He rolled the faded blue material in his hand, swallowing when he recognized it. 

_My t-shirt._ His heart dropped. _Did I leave this all along?_ He brought it to his nose, closing his eyes, and leaving himself open to the arms that wound themselves around his waist. 

“I remembered you,” Eren slurred slightly, licking a stripe up the nape of his neck. “I know where I know you from now…” 

Levi’s heart stopped entirely, he wasn’t sure if this was cause for celebration or desperation… _What do you mean by that?_

“I grew up with you…” Eren murmured against his skin, sloppy kisses damp against his hairline. “You… you were always around right? Like… my best friend…” 

Levi trembled in his grip, releasing a breath as Eren’s hands slid up the skin of his abdomen, thumbs brushing his nipples playfully. The _boulder_ in his throat made him difficult to breathe much less talk. He closed his eyes, letting Eren tug his t-shirt up to nip at his spine, tongue working each ridge of bone. 

“You left…” Eren’s voice was gravel on a dirt road as he tugged Levi’s shirt off and let it fall onto the couch. Eren groaned, tongue tracing the defined edges of his shoulderblades, fingers gliding over the ridges of muscle on his body. “You didn’t say a word to me…” 

“I couldn’t,” he murmured at almost a whine. “I couldn’t say anything to you…” he gripped the back of the couch, t-shirt still wound around his hand. 

“Why?” Eren’s teeth grazed his trapezius and Levi swallowed. _Let him think that’s how he knows you._ A voice said to him somewhere deep in his mind. _Let him think you had nothing to do with the titans._ Eren’s free hand found his half-hard cock through his trousers and _rubbed._

“I had to go to college, I didn’t want to say goodbye,” he gasped lightly. “You’d cry like a little brat.” 

Eren’s heart panged hard in his chest and he sank his teeth into his skin, ripping a groan out of Levi by force, but it was he who was yelping when Levi caught a fistful of hair and pulled him off, “What are you--” Eren trembled when he saw the way those eyes were looking at him. 

Feral and possessive once again, chips of ice that burned right through him, they flashed when he caught Eren by the neck and dragged him into a kiss hot enough to sear his skin. Open-mouths, desperate tongues, exchanging whines and moans with each recurrence. Levi’s hands were on his pants, jerking them down with enough force that his nails scratched Eren’s hips. 

“You don’t know what you do to me, do you?” Levi scraped his nails over his ass, listening to Eren’s moan as the boy worked at his slacks, fingers trembling on the waistband. “You’ve been fucking with me for too long, jerking my chain around like a god damned plaything… either you’re in or you’re out, Jaeger.” He let Eren push him back onto the couch, let him pull his clothes off until his cock stood proud and leaking, until he was climbing onto him with all the eagerness of a whore. 

“I told you… I told you I can’t do it, not until I find him…” Eren’s drunken fingers slipped on the lube and Levi caught his hair in his fingers tightly once more. 

“Get on your knees,” Levi growled, “Then what are you doing fucking me?” 

“I need you,” he murmured almost shyly, suddenly aware of what he was being asked to do. 

“But you need him…” 

“I need to _know_!” He slurred and Levi wondered if he’d ever get to have sex with him while he was sober. 

“I think you’re just a damned whore,” he tugged his hair. “If you want my dick so badly put it in your damned mouth and shut the hell up.” He was growing impatient with both of them. With his own fears, with Eren’s search for whoever it was. If it was him then it was about damned time the kid remembered. If it wasn’t… well at least he had a few moments to remember him by. 

Eren’s tongue slid against his lips almost nervously for a moment, dampening them, before leaning forward between Levi’s outstretched knees. 

_He’s always sat with his knees four miles apart._ Eren thought as he laved his tongue over his head, slurping a little drunkenly at the corona and letting his thumb slide down the raphe slowly to spread his own saliva. 

_Jesus_ the sight of Eren crouched between his thighs, the feel of his mouth around him as he let him slide in against his velvet tongue, the grip of his free hand on his thigh… all of it was too much for him to handle as Eren moaned around his length. 

“Oh god you’re just a fucking whore. How long have you wanted my cock in your mouth, huh? Am I what you think about at night when you fuck yourself senseless on your own fingers?” He received a groan in response that nearly shook _him_ senseless. 

“I know I’ve heard you, oh god the way you moan like you think no one hears,” his breath hitched when Eren looked up at him with a turquoise gaze behind glinting glass. “You didn’t take off your _fucking_ glasses,” he felt a tremor go down his spine as he tugged Eren down his cock. 

Eren wasn’t exactly sure what was going through his head, clamping his fingers around his base to keep him from peaking too early, saliva thick as he sucked hard on his next pass. He was heavy and bitter in his mouth, silk on his tongue as he rode his mouth a little more harshly than Eren thought was necessary… but that wasn’t about to stop him. He thrust his head forward eagerly and earned a cry that sounded like it had clawed its way out by force, Levi nearly ripping his hair as he pulled his head back. 

He came hard, lights blinding in his eyes, leaving him boneless and sated on the couch. “Well isn’t that one hell of a turn on?” He smirked lazily as semen dripped down Eren’s glasses and onto his cheek. “Jesus you’re a fucking mess,” he could almost see steam rising off the top of Eren’s head. 

The way his voice sounded next had Levi nearly swooning, rough and unforgiving, he somehow enjoyed aggressive drunk Eren more than the sleepy drunk he’d dealt with before. “Get on your knees,” Eren grabbed him hard enough Levi was almost certain there’d be a bruise. 

“On the god damned floor?” Levi scowled but Eren was already dragging him down and kissing his mouth with Levi’s come still drying on his face. Fuck this was the sloppiest he’d ever been but the combination of Eren’s kisses and just how hard he was pressed against his stomach… he nearly moaned again… as if he hadn’t already let go a little too much. 

“Turn around,” Eren growled. “I’ll be rough too since you can’t seem to control yourself.” He shoved him face first against the couch as he ripped his glasses off. 

“Oh please you couldn’t be r--” He moaned aloud when Eren’s teeth sank into his shoulder, the first digit of his finger already sliding in. 

“Shit you’re loose,” Eren whispered against his ear. “All this big talk about me thinking about you, I think it’s you that’s fucking yourself senseless thinking about _me_ ,” he worked his finger in to the hilt, sliding lube in until he was satisfied to add another. “You think I’m a whore but you can’t stop giving in to me. I bet you go back to that lonely house of yours and think about me all night until those perfect sheets are soaked.” 

_This is new._ He rutted back on his fingers, relenting to control was his least favorite task, nails digging into the fabric of the couch. 

“Come on and moan like the whore you think I am,” Eren curled his fingers up, searching. 

“Kiss my--” He fucking _whined_ when Eren found what he was looking for and rubbed hard on his prostate. “You fucking--” 

“How many times have you dreamt about me?” Eren said against his ear, cock hard against his thigh. “Huh? Do you think about fucking me every day or do you save it? I bet you think about me at the worst times,” his third finger had Levi’s legs quaking. 

“J-Just do it already fuck you’re wor-wordy…” it was hard to manage a good comeback when your breath was choked by your vocal chords. 

“You want me to fuck you?” Eren growled and his voice echoed in Levi’s memories, somewhere long ago in a dimly lit room. “Ask for it.” 

“Go to hell,” he gasped when the head of his cock pushed against his opening. 

“Ask, I’m tired of being jerked around,” his teeth found the junction of his neck and shoulder. 

“Fuck--fuck me! God damn it Eren! Just fuck me already!” He cried out when he thrust in, nails nearly ripping the fabric. 

Was this really it for them? Eren’s fingers gripped his hips hard enough to bruise, one hand curled around his shoulder to hold him in place as he jerked back into each fresh roll of Eren’s hips. Was this all they could ever have? A hate fuck on the floor of Eren’s apartment? His knees screamed against the rough rug beneath them, elbows chafing on the couch fabric as Eren’s bite sank into his shoulder hard enough to break the skin. 

This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t what he’d meant. What had he done? 

Why had everything become so confused? 

He sank his teeth into the fabric of the couch when Eren came, hot and slick inside him. _What are we even doing, Eren?_ He closed his eyes and surrendered to his release but it was bittersweet against the bile in his throat. 

_I’m sorry I ever let any of this happen._

_I’m sorry I ever met you._

_You could have been happy without me._

He couldn’t remember how they’d made it to the bed, or why Eren had pulled him down to sleep, or why he didn’t just go home. Why didn’t he just leave? He wondered as Eren murmured nothings to him, apologizing for biting him so hard, aggression vanquished. 

Why couldn’t he say no and just let Eren be happy? 

_Why do I have to love you so damned much?_ He wrapped his arms around him when Eren fell asleep, eyes burning. 

\--- 

“Wow! You guys brought back a bunch!” Karla whispered as Levi set the bag down. “Thank you for doing that, Levi,” she caught her hand on the side of his face. “You’re a wonderful big brother for Eren.” 

“Yeah… well he’s a good kid,” he cradled the boy in his arms. “I’ll take him upstairs,” he walked towards the hallway. 

“Levi,” Karla said softly and he paused to look back at her. “Thank you for always looking after my son. I know he’s safe with you.” 

He felt his 17 year old heart break, felt his world come crashing down, but he forced a broken smile onto his face anyway, “Yeah you can count on me.” 

“N’you stay?” Eren stirred awake as Levi shut his bedroom door, setting him down on the bed. 

“Sure, buddy,” he helped him work out of his costume. “Which pjs do you want?” 

“Dun matter,” he blinked sleepily. “Wait can I have that?” He asked when Levi pulled out his own clothes from the bag he’d left earlier. 

“My t-shirt?” Levi furrowed his brows, “Sure why not.” He slid it over his head, blue-grey and plain with white trim, he wore it to bed every night it wasn’t in the wash. 

“Thanks Cap’n,” Levi shucked his costume, pulling on his sweatpants before helping Eren slide under the blankets. 

“Damn it, Jaeger,” he let Eren giggle as he tucked him in. “Good night,” he kissed his forehead and climbed into the top bunk. _Could I ever really give him up?_

When, predictably, Eren scrambled into the top bunk to join him Levi couldn’t help but smile and let him under the covers, “You were right here I wanted to sleep with you.” 

“I figured, needy,” he let him tuck his small frame against his bare chest and caught his arms around him. “Is that all you need?” 

“Can I have a kiss goodnight?” Eren sat up a little and Levi chuckled. “Muah!” 

“Alright, alright,” Levi kissed his mouth chastely. “Satisfied?” 

“I love Levi the most,” he told him with his hand splayed against his heart, green eyes bright in the light of the moon. 

“I love you, too, Eren.” 

When he settled down and curled into his arms Levi couldn’t help the tears that rolled down his face. He fought them down, desperately trying not to wake Eren when they dripped into his hair. 

He’d give anything to keep Eren blissfully unaware of everything. 

Even Eren. 

At least that’s what he had thought then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all, thank you for reading~
> 
> Should I have warned you about the smut? Nahhh


	12. In a few weeks I will realize it's right before my eyes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren and Levi have another morning after. The countdown begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters left until the big reveal. What the hell does that mean? No it's not the end of the story.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome

Of all things he'd expected to do the morning after Halloween it most certainly wasn't the feel of gentle fingers sliding through his hair or damp kisses stirring him into the present. 

"Mmph?" Eren's eyes flickered open as the soft kisses continued against the crook of his neck and the curve of his throat. "Good morning," a lazy smile spilled onto his face as Levi lifted his head and slotted their mouths together. "Hmm~" Eren wrapped his arms around him, warm and comfortable beneath the blanket. 

Levi wondered if he should hazard asking if he had any idea who he was; if he was simply kissing the ghost of a memory. Then he reconsidered, too comfortable for the moment to break the embrace. _I'm addicted._ Cuddled down in the soft sheets beneath his duvet Levi felt more at home than he had in years, letting long fingers stroked at his spine and curl against the curve of his rear gently. 

"Good morning," Levi finally replied. 

Eren's goofy grin slid across his features and Levi's heart leapt; he never thought that sweet, sleepy smile would ever be directed at him again, "Are you okay?" Turquoise eyes flickered over the bruises that stood dark against the pale skin of his shoulders. "I bit you." 

"Hard," Levi added for emphasis and sat up, starting to feel nerves billow into his stomach. _He's going to tell me to get out._

"I'm sorry, Levi," Eren murmured. 

"It's fine." _Here it comes._

"Why don't I make some breakfast?" Eren suggested as he propped himself up on his elbow. "What?" The way Levi was looking at him was as if he'd seen a ghost, wide eyed curiosity blatant. 

"You..." He didn't want to jinx it, break the spell that was holding them together. _Don't do this to yourself Levi._ He let a smile flicker across his lips. "Sorry, you're just... Yeah breakfast sounds good." 

"Great," Eren wasn't about to ask, wasn't about to bring anything up that had happened between them, not yet anyway. He kissed him, catching his hand against the side of his face, before sliding out of the bed. 

_I'll be damned._ The sight of him long and lean against the sunlight filtering in through the curtains stirred a hundred different memories from the depths of his mind: Eren backlit as the steam from a titan swallowed him, Eren standing high on a battlement with his swords drawn in the grey dawn, Eren soaked in blood as clear waters drank the fluids and diluted them until-- 

“Don’t go anywhere,” then he was catching his hand and pulling the boy back into bed and into a kiss as his fingers locked into his hair. “Just stay here for a while.” 

“Sure,” Eren said against his lips as Levi’s fingers flicked his pants down his hips, thumbs grazing the sharp edges of his hips. “Ignore it,” Eren muttered as his phone rang from the other room. “It’s just my sister.” 

“She’s not going to come here?” Levi wasn’t about to stop trailing kisses down his throat, feeling Eren’s moan rumble against his lips. 

“No she’s got class~” Eren laughed when Levi shoved him down onto the bed, breath catching in his throat as Levi searched his face with steel eyes that made his heart flutter against his sternum. _Am I falling for you?_ He slung his arms around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss. 

Levi couldn’t believe this, that he was here in Eren’s arms earning kisses and murmured affections. When Eren’s tongue flicked out over his ear he shivered, laughing against the side of his neck and catching his hand against the nape of his neck and turning his head to rake his teeth against his pulse point and suck the tender skin at the hollow of his throat. This was better than any dream. 

Having Eren here with his legs curved lazily around his thighs, fingers sliding against the shaven hair on the back of his hand, mouth soft and warm against his... 

“God damn it just answer the phone,” Levi said finally against the phone’s fourth encore performance. 

Eren sat up and Levi perched on his heels, running his fingers through his hair as he watched Eren scamper to the phone, barely able to comprehend just what was happening. He caught the fabric of Eren’s shirt off the floor and pulled it on, padding into the kitchen. _Well if there’s one thing you’re good at, Levi, it’s taking advantage of a situation. That’s for sure._

“Yeah, sorry Mikasa,” Eren leaned his hip against the couch to watch him, arms folded over his chest. “Armin’s where?” 

_“I said he’s not answering his phone either, fuckass.”_

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, the tequila shots you were doing last night were brutal, huh?” 

_“I swear to god Eren I’m hungover and angry.”_

“A’ight I’ll go check on him in a bit,” he grimaced at the phone when his sister hung up. “Sometimes I wish she wouldn’t drink, she’s been overdoing it lately,” Concern flickered across his face. 

“Have you bothered to ask why?” Levi felt his fingers graze the curve of his ass and shivered, opening the refridgerator. 

“No I… guess I haven’t…” he murmured. _Am I a bad brother?_ He started the coffee maker, staring down the dripping liquid as it gathered in beads on the glass. _Have I been missing important parts of their lives?_

What if something big has happened and I don’t know it? His heart stopped. He’d been busy lately that was for sure, between classes and his research and his search for his memories he hadn’t time to talk to his sister or Armin all that much. Armin. His chest felt tight, even though things seemed okay between them maybe it was time they sat down and had a long talk. About Jean. About Marco. About everything. 

"What the hell is this, Eren?" 

"Orange juice?" He looked confused, focusing on the plastic container in his hand. 

"God damn it Jaeger if I wanted to chew my orange juice I'd just shove a god damned orange in my mouth," he shook the jug angrily. "What the fuck is 'high pulp' anyway and what genius thought it was a fucking good idea?" 

"Ah, I'll work on catering to your juice needs in the future," Eren caught his arm around his waist and his anger dissipated. "Coffee?" He wafted the cup under his nose and kissed at the curve of his neck. 

“This feels domestic,” fear struck Levi’s heart as he spoke the words. _Jesus why can’t you resist fucking yourself over?_

“Is it?” Eren murmured, resting his face against his shoulder. “Is that bad?” His fingers curled into the fabric of Levi’s shirt. _His_ shirt on Levi’s body. 

“I--” Levi hesitated. _Don’t think too long._ “No it isn’t…” 

“I’m sorry, Levi,” he closed his eyes and pulled him into his arms. “I’m sorry I forgot about you and… why didn’t you say anything? I-I just forgot it had been so long.” 

“I don’t know,” Levi answered and let him nuzzle the nape of his neck, staring himself down in the coffee’s reflection. Each pulse of his fingers sent ripples across the water. _Tell him. Just say the damned words. I --_

“Well that’s okay, as long as I remember now right?” Eren offered and drew away. “I had the biggest crush on you when we were kids, you were always my hero.” 

“Heh, that’s cute that you still remember that.” 

“I used to call you Captain! Captain Levi!” When he said it out loud a wave of fear and nostalgia swept over both of them, the ghost of a laugh dying on his lips. 

The silence was deafening, pounding in Levi’s ears as he lifted his head to look at Eren, half praying he’d remember. Half praying he wouldn’t. 

“Captain,” Eren seemed to roll the word in his mouth, looking for connections. 

“What are your plans for the day?” Levi changed the subject on impulse, shoving his hips against the cabinet harder than he meant to. _Damn he was rough with me._ A tremor of pain shot up his spine. 

“I don’t know just yet, I know I need to find Armin.” 

“How’s that going?” 

“What? Finding Armin?” Eren’s mind was too caught up with trying to piece memories together; to knit the word _Captain_ back into his thoughts. 

“Eren,” he drew his turquoise eyes back to his face, placing a hand flat against his abdomen. “Have dinner with me.” 

“Is that a command or a suggestion?” 

“It’s a question you massive asshat,” Levi rose on his toes, catching his fingers in his hair. 

“Sure, dinner sounds good,” Eren left it at that when he kissed him. _I don’t want this to stop._

_It will have to when I find him._ He had a feeling he was close, that everything was finally starting to fall into place. 

\--- 

Levi spent the next week whistling in the shower and smiling at seemingly random moments that shocked the hell out of his interns. Even Erwin grew suspicious when Levi spent an entire day without beating someone senseless. What they didn’t know was that with make out sessions between Eren’s work and dinner in the boy’s apartment he’d barely been home to his dark, lonesome house. He hadn’t had time to think about all the things in life that made him crazy. All he had to do was come home to Eren’s smile and gentle kisses. 

It may have been a tenuous peace it was a peace he could handle. 

“Why do you always have to get up so early?” Eren groaned against his shoulder when Levi’s phone rumbled for his attention. 

“Some of us have to work for a living, fucktruck,” Levi sat up and slid the alarm off. 

“Skip work today,” Eren curled around him and Levi chuckled, ruffling his hair. 

“Sleep some more, I’ll be back this evening, and tomorrow is our date remember?” 

“More sex,” Eren grouched against his skin. 

“Soon, I’ve got to be able to walk at work and Monday was hell,” Levi peeled himself out of his arms reluctantly; heart aching when Eren reached for him in his blind tiredness. 

“Are you gonna make coffee?” 

“Of course you needy little shit, go back to sleep,” he kissed his cheek and found Eren’s mouth searching out his own. “Brush your teeth,” he laughed as Eren groaned and pulled the duvet up over his head. 

Yes. This was nice. 

\--- 

He was smiling as he stood in line at Starbucks, thinking about Eren’s sleepy smile and his stupid little kisses, almost forgetting he had to order when he reached the barrista. 

“Excuse me,” he turned as someone spoke to him, looking curious. Her hair was pushed over to one side in soft, voluminous curls to counteract the shaved edges around her ear, golden eyes searched his face with recognition shining in them and her face… 

Images of her fighting by his side, a fury of green and brown, the way she smiled when she brought him tea, the warmth and affection she applied to everything she did for him… all of it came flooding back. 

The girl that had been desperately in love with him. The girl that had been too shy to tell him. The girl whose love he could never return. 

Who had died protecting the person he loved more than all. 

“Petra,” he breathed her name and cursed his luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "What You Know" by Two Door Cinema Club.
> 
> Thanks for reading~ <3


	13. I close my eyes I pretend I'm alright.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's only a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read my chapter notes at the bottom. I won't say much here.
> 
> This chapter was written while listening to the song "Echo" by Jason Walker. The chapter title is from that song.

“So you’ve switched to coffee?” Petra asked as they sat down in the coffee shop, her manicured fingers exposed against the wool of her glovelets. “I seem to remember you always drank tea, right?” 

“Well lives change, it’s been centuries I’m sure my tastes have varied,” he responded and she laughed. _My boyfriend drinks coffee._ He wasn’t even sure if he could call him that, unwinding the scarf from around his neck to fold it in his lap. 

“You haven’t changed a bit, I’m so happy you remember me,” her honey eyes were soft and warm when she looked at him but shot back down to her coffee cup as she traced her finger along the lip. “There are so many questions that I have for you, so many thoughts that have to do with everything that happened back then. Eren? Erwin? Hanji? What about Oruo and Erd? I…” her voice quieted. “How did we defeat the titans?” 

“Eren,” Levi answered simply. “We always knew he was the key, I don’t even remember all of it myself.” 

“What… happened there?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Between you and Eren?” Her voice softened. 

“Oh…” She recognized the glint in his eyes when he hesitated. 

“Before you answer,” she reached across the table and caught his hand. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you and I… don’t think I could stand myself if I didn’t tell you now.” 

“Petra you--” 

“So many years ago I idolized you. You were the perfect man in my eyes.” 

“Petra please, stop,” he recalled the sound of her father’s sobbing, the way his words had broken his already breaking body. 

“I loved you so much,” she uttered with a note of finality. “I still love you so much,” her honeyed eyes searched his face and held him there, like a rat in a cage. 

“I’m sorry,” His grey eyes flickered and he looked away, shoulders tight as he drew his fingers from her grip. He couldn’t look at the way her heart broke on her face. 

“It’s fine you don’t have to be sorry,” she murmured. “It’s not your fault that you don’t love me back,” her voice was small and quiet in the sound of the coffee shop, like a child’s. “I’m sorry I… said anything I just had to tell you. All that time ago I wanted to tell you so desperately…” 

“It’s fine, you don’t have to apologize either,” Levi sighed softly. “I have to go to work.” 

“Let me get your cellphone number, okay? I mean even if… we should be friends. How many people have what we have in common? I still can’t believe you remember everything,” she tapped at her screen and offered her phone to him. 

Levi hesitated, but reached out and tapped his number in anyway, biting his bottom lip, “I have a town car do you need a ride?” He stood and wound his scarf back around his neck. _This isn’t mine._ He examined it for a moment, running the soft cashmere between his fingers. _Eren._ He couldn’t stop the smile that spilled onto his face. 

“Oh… yeah that’d be great I go to Emerson,” Petra said as he pulled out her chair for her, following him out. _I can’t believe I found you again._ She smiled at his back, sipping her latte happily. 

\--- 

Eren opened his groggy eyes to the sound of a text message from his bedside table, a tanned hand emerging to curl around the phone and pull it back under the duvet he was comfortably snuggled under. He figured it was Mikasa telling him to wake up, squinting at the words on the bright little screen. 

_Erwin Smith._

The name struck a chord deep in his gut and Eren threw off his blanket, snatching his glasses off the bedside table to check and make sure he was reading it right. _I don’t know anyone by that name._

**Erwin Smith**

Make sure you forward that portfolio to HR 

There were too many things going through his head that he couldn’t explain, buzzing loud in his ears as he stared down the text. _Commander Erwin Smith._ He remembered him distinctly, why wouldn’t he? He was the one who had given Eren the chance, the kind but manipulative superior who had taken both Eren and… his name shuddered on the tip of his tongue, sharp and bittersweet. 

“I must have Levi’s phone,” he said to no one in particular, watching the screen go dark. “It’s none of my business.” But the truth was still burrowing deep into his brain: _Levi is lying to me._

That was the moment Eren made a very stupid decision that would change his life forever. 

\--- 

Petra was silent for part of the drive, flicking at the plastic edge of her coffee lid as Levi unwound his scarf. “So... what _did_ happen with Eren?” Her voice still sounded a little sad as she looked up at him. “You… what happened after we…” 

“He survived, obviously, thanks to you all,” he offered an appreciative glance. 

“That’s good,” she sighed happily and leaned back into the leather. “Tell me something, did you ever end up happy? Does your story have a happy ending?” 

His heart ached at that and the feel of warm blood pouring over him against the cooling of his body made him bite the inside of his lip hard enough to pierce it, “No.” He cleared his throat, pale under her gaze. “My story doesn’t have a happy ending.” 

\--- 

His stomach churned as he fiddled with the zipper of his jacket, pulling it up and down again until the noise had blended in with the world around him and all he could see was shadows flickering behind his eyes. 

Memories that he’d been too caught up with his own life to remember, memories that had started this whole journey. Flashes of green cloaks and scarlet blood against an emerald battlefield and a deep blue background. Indistinct faces that left an ache deep in his heart. 

_“You just can’t let me die in peace, can you brat?”_ His voice was rough and ragged against his eardrums, muffled by his titan’s flesh. 

“Eren?” A deep voice broke his reverie and Eren’s heart jumped into his throat. A smile curled over his lips, soft against the sharp angles of his cheekbones. His hair was considerably more interesting than Eren remembered, pushed back from his face in a sleek undercut. It gave him a distinctly German look, strict and incredibly handsome. 

“Commander!” Eren stood up sharply, nearly knocking over his chair. “I-I mean… Mr. Smith…” 

“Call me Erwin,” his hand raised in gentility. “Have a seat, there’s no need to be so formal.” 

“Somehow it’s like a reflex,” Eren rubbed the back of his neck and offered his hand, awkward under the watchful eyes of the sub shop. “Sorry to invite you to such a place… you’re so nicely dressed.” Eren felt awkward in his jeans and worn leather jacket, a relic from his father’s youth. 

“I was at work when I received your message, I wasn’t really sure I could believe that it was you,” Erwin sat down, not bothering to worry about wrinkling his suit. Eren thought that was an interesting difference between Erwin and Levi, how they treat their things. 

“I think Levi accidentally took my phone, I just wanted to make sure to get it back to him,” Eren said, twiddling the object on the table. 

“Is that all?” Perceptive blue eyes flickered over Eren’s face and he flinched away. “If you wanted to return Levi’s phone to him… why didn’t you just call him?” 

Eren hesitated, caught in an unanswerable series of questions, of course Erwin would see right through him. They may have been in a different world, in a different time period, with different background but… at the core they were still the same. 

“I want to know the truth, Commander,” Eren lifted his head. “Why wouldn’t Levi let me meet you when you’re obviously close? Who else… is he hiding from me?” 

“Do you really want to know?” Erwin laced his fingers together, eyes flickering over the long strands so reminiscent of a monster he’d once seen in his nightmares. “Well, bright-eyes?” 

The phrase was triggering, bringing rushing memories back and heating his skin, pricking at his adrenal gland and setting his heart pumping rabbit-quick against his sternum. 

_“Cap’n Revi!” He swung a wooden sword at him with a giggle. “Raaar! Imma titan!”_

_“Whoa there, bright-eyes, the last thing you are is a titan~” 15 year old Levi swept him off his feet, letting the wooden sword clatter to the ground. His grey eyes still shone with light, long dark hair unruly and soft._

_“I am a titan!” He clacked his teeth together, nipping at his neck playfully._

_“Alright, but titan’s aren’t this small! They’re at least--” Levi threw him high in the air, laughing at the screams of delight from the three year old. “This high!” He caught him again, whirling around to displace his momentum._

_“AGAIN!” Eren demanded. His shouts of ‘Cap’n’ and ‘Revi’ could be heard even from the other side of the cul-de-sac, echoing off the closed garage doors and bouncing off the pane-glass windows._

“Bright-eyes…” Eren murmured. _Captain._

“Levi wanted to make sure you never learned the truth,” Eren found cerulean eyes boring into his skin when he returned to his own body. 

“Captain.” 

“You’re a damned brat, he’s right,” the blonde stretched his legs out underneath the table, folding his arms behind his head. 

“Captain… Levi?” 

\--- 

“What happened to you?” Petra murmured. “Does it have to do with Eren? Did something happen back then?” 

“I fell in love with him,” he replied honestly. 

Surprise lifted her brows into her half-shaved hairline, “What? You?” 

“Yes, me, why does everybody seem so surprised? I wasn’t some heartless bastard.” 

“No I… I understand that it’s just… with him?” 

“He was everything I wasn’t. Free and furious and beautiful in a way only the collapse of a star could describe. He burned so bright until he swallowed everything around him and made you warm and comfortable and _angry_ just like him. It was refreshing just to feel again. Just to wake up in the morning and feel _anything._ I’d spent so long pushing everything down to become a better soldier for Erwin’s sake. He couldn’t be the only one who couldn’t feel anything, and I couldn’t be the only one feeling everything.” 

“You fell in love… with him…” She whispered against her fingers as she watched her proud Captain wilt before her eyes. 

“I fell _desperately_ and before I’d even noticed he’d become _my_ hope. Humanity’s Strongest Soldier is nothing if he doesn’t have any hope for what he’s doing. I could kill a thousand titans but until that fucking kid showed up I didn’t know _why_ anymore. It was all senseless until the fury of that boy infected me and left me fucking breathless and wanting more,” his knuckles went white on the fabric of his jacket, nails grating against the wool. 

Petra’s heart ached for him, watching him unravel, “Levi… it’s okay to be in love you know?” 

“I killed him,” Levi said abruptly and she nearly dropped her coffee cup onto the leather seat of the town car. 

The silence was more than Levi could bear, the sound throbbing against his eardrums until he was drowning in the noise. Until his eyes burned and he was left with shaking shoulders and a hand clutched tightly to the scarf around his neck that still smelled distinctly of _Eren_. Until all he had left was the knot in his throat and the burn of bile on his tongue. 

_What have I done?_

\--- 

Eren was still dazed when he made his way back to his apartment and flicked the light on, staring into the dim glare blankly. 

“Levi…” he sobbed again, covering his mouth with his hand. _All along it’s been you._ He leaned against the couch for a moment, clutching the fabric desperately. “I’ve been looking for you all along, and you _knew_!” Rage filled him and he picked up the nearest object, flinging it across the room. The scream of anguish and fury that followed left him on his knees, sobs shaking his chest as he shoved the coffee table away from him and watched it careen into his computer desk. 

“YOU KNEW ALL ALONG!” He ripped up the rug where only a week before Levi’s knees had been chafed and threw it onto the coffee table. He tore apart the notes written in Levi’s tidy handwriting, slammed the french doors open so hard the glass shattered out of the panes before grabbing the footboard and shaking the entire bed. He wanted to tear everything apart that reminded him of Levi, to break apart every last memory he had of him and throw them back into his face. 

“ALL I WANTED WAS YOU!” The pictures in the room rattled, one on his bedside clattered to the ground, and his whole body shook again with the sobs he couldn’t control. 

Anger, hatred, sadness, betrayal; every emotion he could think of pierced his chest hard enough he couldn’t breathe. All he could think to do was escape. Escape from this place and never look back. Every happy memory hit him like a dagger to the back, every moment when Levi smiled felt cold and fake… everything had been a lie. 

“YOU FUCKING LIAR!” Eren smashed his fist into the dresser, the bones in his knuckles giving just slightly. “GOD DAMN YOU! FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH!” He hit the wood again and again and again until he’d slide back down to his knees, resting his forehead against the splintered wood… too exhausted to move. “I hate you so… fucking much…” he cried, clawing at the floor pathetically as the soft ‘drip-drip’ of blood trickling onto the floor from his hand joined the silence. 

_“Promise me, Eren, that you’ll find me again.”_ Levi. 

_“No buts. Promise me. Tell me right now.”_ Levi. 

_“This can’t be the end.”_ Levi. 

It had been Levi all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, though enjoyed might be the wrong word. Tune in next week for the _big reveal_.
> 
> I love you all, thank you for reading. <3
> 
> IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW I'M WORKING ON A COLLABORATION WITH WINDWOLF0097 THE WRITER OF LOG ON. READ IT [HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1021219).


	14. I'm gonna get through to you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin is the voice of reason. Eren is a massive nerd. Levi considers his options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This is kind of the peak of this arc! Next chapter begins the descent of sadness so enjoy it while it lasts.
> 
> I love you all. <3
> 
>  **tumblr:** thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
>  **tracking:** fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome

“Eren what the hell?” Armin threw the door open and stared at his sorrow-faced friend. “What are you doing here?”

“Who is it?” A voice called from the back room and Eren looked up to see Jean emerge from the bedroom, hair messy and tossed over his eyes. “Eren, what the hell?”

That seemed to be the question of the evening as Eren let Armin lead him in and swear over the shredded skin of his hand. He didn’t put up a fight when they drove him to the hospital, knuckles packed in ice as they sat in the waiting room, cold water trickling over and down his wrist. He watched the beads of water collect and burst, sliding over the rough terrain of his flesh like a newborn river in the rare rain of a desert. He almost felt poetic.

“Eren?” He lifted his deadened eyes to find Jean watching him with concern. “What’s going on?”

“I found him,” the sound shook Jean to the core. Hollow and empty, rough from crying that matched the red rings around his eyes, but it was the weight of the words that had him kneeling.

“You found him?” He repeated, heart lifting. “Did you really?” There was hope in his golden eyes and Eren couldn’t help but hate. “That… must have been amazing how do you… feel? Why do you… look like this?” Concern toyed at the edges of his voice and Eren couldn’t help but compare this man to the Jean of his memories. He’d been a cocky shit from the first day they’d met, but after Trost his mood had changed; he’d become a good friend in the end.

“He lied to me,” Eren murmured, feeling the gentle grip of Armin’s hand on his neck return. “He lied to me…” his eyes burned again and he welcomed the embrace of his best friend, burying his face against his navel as he cried.

“It was Levi, wasn’t it?” Armin asked almost darkly, looking up as someone came charging through the sliding doors.

“Eren!” Mikasa’s voice broke his face away from Armin and soon she had thrown herself into his arms, kneeling on the chair and bundling him against her. “What happened to you? Did that weirdo hit you?”

“Mikasa…” he murmured her name and nuzzled his face tiredly against her chest to let her loosely wrap her arms around him, shoving him aside and half sitting in his lap. “You were right…”

“I… was?”

“I never should have done any of this…” he whispered.

 

* * *

 

Levi pushed open the door to Eren’s dark apartment. Erwin had told him that Eren had dropped his phone off at the front desk for him and he was thankful that the kid wasn’t dumb enough to call anyone or nosy enough to go through his things. It was better that way, after a shitty mistake like that. “Eren?” He flicked the light on.

Absolutely everything was turned over and destroyed and for a brief moment Levi was terrified that Eren had been kidnapped, hand shooting to his phone in his pocket. _I have his phone_ … he suddenly realized and pulled them both out of his pocket with shaking fingers. _Something’s happened_ …

His next thought was to call Erwin, “Pick up you _shitty bastard_.”

“Levi, I thought you’d be busy by now…” Erwin sounded as smooth as ever, voice like brandy.

“ _Busy_?” Levi seethed venom, kicking Eren’s jacket out of his way as he walked into the living room. “Where the fuck is Eren!”

“Why do you think I’ve done anything with him?”

“You told me he dropped off my phone right? At the front office?”

“I said he dropped off your phone.”

Cold fear trickled down the back of his neck and Levi caught his hand on his collar, loosening his tie just slightly, “What did you do?” He could almost hear Erwin smile.

“I just got your phone from, that’s all.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“ _Erwin god damn it_.”

 

* * *

 

Eren spent the next two weeks avoiding his apartment as much as possible; going to class and not really enjoying it, eating with Armin and not really enjoying it, talking to Mikasa and definitely not enjoying it. Every time she was there she threatened to beat Levi up for hurting him despite Eren’s repeated attempts to dissuade her. He didn’t want him hurt, he just wanted to understand, and in this state of confused memories he couldn’t even think straight.

Thoughts and memories were pouring into his head, desperate recollections that before had only come at night or while he was sleeping and now… now everything was falling into place in his head and he spent half his days curled up on the couch watching Star Wars and Lord of the Rings until Armin forced him to leave the house.

“I don’t want to do this, what if I run into him?” Eren said, freshly showered and bundled up in a thick woolen scarf.

“Eren you’ll have to move back to your house eventually… you can’t avoid him forever…” Armin looked over at him. “I… didn’t think you’d be this upset about it.”

“Is that why you dragged me out of the house? To talk to me about this?”

“Eren… what did he do to you?”

“He left me Armin! When I was a kid he went away and never looked back! Back then I knew he was there… I remembered him and it was _Levi_ with all his strength and warmth and…” he covered his face. “We promised. And he spent all this time lying to me… he remembered all of it…” He shook his head.

“How do you know? That maybe he didn’t remember suddenly like Mikasa did? She’s been really upset lately about all of that--”

“Mikasa?” Eren’s voice softened. “I need to talk to her…” he murmured. _What have I been doing all this time?_

“Regardless he… he’s the one you’ve spent all this time looking for right?” Armin offered. “He’s the one you’re in love with…”

“My past self was in love with Levi,” he answered. “They had a history; he was that Eren’s protector and his mentor and everything he thought about revolved around _titans_ and then there was always this guy… Levi was always there for him even when he didn’t fucking care about anything else… he made him believe and all this stuff and…”

“Eren…” Armin stopped dead. “Are you feeling guilty?”

“What?” He asked incredulously, hot breath steaming his glasses. “Guilty about what?”

“You forgot someone so important to your past self and now you feel guilty. You’ve done exactly the same thing Eren did back then!” Armin’s smile glowed and Eren had the sudden urge to hit him.

“I don’t feel guilty for that prick! You know what he… Levi knew! When we were children he knew and he fucking _left me there_ like I meant nothing… and then he spent this whole time fucking lying to me. Saying he was trying to help me hunt down the person in my dreams but really he was…”

“There all along, the one thing you wanted more than anything.”

“Don’t say it like that… you make it sound romantic and it’s not. It’s lying and betrayal.”

“I know that, Eren, it’s just… I want you to be happy more than anything else in the world.”

“So why did he… do all that stuff?” Eren muttered.

“Maybe because he feels the same way as me? I never want to see you the way you were then. I want you to be happy, I want you to smile, I want you to enjoy life and never have to bear that weight you did,” Armin caught his shoulders and squeezed gently. “I love you, Eren, and when you love somebody you don’t want to watch them waste away on your couch, no matter how many times they think they can marathon Extended Editions.”

Eren’s face curled into a smile for the first time in weeks as he searched his best friend’s eyes, brows crinkling in affection.

“I can’t face him yet…” _But I need to know_ why _he did all this stuff_.

“He hurt you, that’s understandable.”

“Hey Armin…”

“Shit I knew this was going to go somewhere…”

 

* * *

 

Armin, after some arguing and a minor scuffle in the fitting room, agreed to detour to Eren’s apartment. He knew Eren was avoiding Levi but this was just starting to get ridiculous. He trudged up the stairs and turned for Eren’s door.

“Ere--” He turned sharply to find a desperate-looking face hanging in the doorway to the other apartment, blue eyes wide and dark. “Oh… it’s you…” but he was walking out towards him anyway. “Arlert, where is he?”

“H-Hey! Back off!” Armin brought his fists up, visibly threatened.

Levi’s face sank and Armin watched a man he’d seen tear apart towering beasts with his bare hands visibly wilt, “This is all that damned bastard’s fault…” he muttered and turned to walk back to his house. “Will you just tell him I’m sorry?” Levi asked softly.

“No!” Armin said fiercely. “You two are both pathetic! The one person that loves you more than anything else is within arm’s reach and you’re both moping around like they weren’t! I just watched someone recover from losing their soul mate and I know what it really feels like to lose someone you love. I just had to watch someone I love go through the darkest time in his life. I had to watch him fall apart over a man he loved and lost once before and I swear to god if one of you doesn’t stop being such a sad sack and deal with all this shit I’m going to _make you_ ,” he grabbed Levi’s shirt and jerked him closer, blue eyes furious.

Levi could feel the intensity of his gaze, recognized it from so many years ago, his eyes that could see straight through you and tear every pathetic excuse you could manage apart without saying a word. _He grew into that man again didn’t he… he had to with Eren around_. He caught his hand with gentle fingers.

“Say something, anything, because Eren’s at home right now destroyed by whatever the fuck happened between you and I’m tired of watching him mope! I love him so damned much and you don’t seem to at all because you wouldn’t just let him fucking suffer if you--”

“Arlert.”

“If you just fucking cared about him! If you wouldn’t have lied to him!” His hand shook on Levi’s shirt.

“Armin.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU! ARE YOU REALLY THE MAN I KNEW ALL THOSE YEARS AGO? CAPTAIN LEVI WOULD NEVER LIE TO EREN! HE WOULDN’T HURT HIM THIS WAY.”

“I killed Eren,” his voice was nearly a whisper beneath the end of Armin’s shout, fading into lips that folded under the pressure as Armin’s hand released him limply.

For a long moment the blue eyes that had once held such ferocity had calmed and Armin curled his fingers into his long blonde hair, passing his other hand across his face. He seemed to be processing something… searching for something.

“There’s so much you can’t understand,” Levi muttered.

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t do that.”

“ _I swear to god_.”

“I don’t know how to sort it all out in my head and until I do…”

“You’re going to talk to him?” Armin folded his arms over his chest.

“Yes, I just can’t get close enough to do so.”

“I think I have a way… but I’m not sure how it would work. He won’t come over here and I’m certainly not strong enough to drag his ass here. He’d bolt the instant we parked.”

“I’ll figure something out… How do you begin to apologize to someone…”

“The best place to start is with ‘I’m sorry’,” Armin said a little more cruelly than he should have.

“You really are a lot like Erwin.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Armin tilted his chin up.

“You always do.”

 

* * *

 

“Eren! Are you ready to go?” Jean stuck his head into Armin’s bedroom. “Jesus you’re useless…”

“Armin always has to do this…” Eren was sitting patiently at the edge of the bed, letting Armin wrap his tie carefully into a perfect knot. “Don’t want to look stupid for Connie and Sasha’s wedding.”

“Not that you can help it.”

“At least I’m not a horse face.”

“ _Children_ ,” Armin’s mothering tone shut them up as he stood. “Come on Mikasa’s waiting.”

The drive to the venue was a quiet one with Eren sitting in the back seat with his sister, hands wound together. It seemed somehow familiar, watching her fiddle with the hem of her skirt and he suddenly recognized it.

“Mikasa are you okay?” He caught her other hand in his, curling their fingers together.

“Yeah I’m fine,” she smiled up at him. “Eren… I…”

“What are you so nervous about?”

“It’s nothing, I’m happy you’re here.”

“I’m… sorry I’ve been so distant lately…” He couldn’t help but swallow at how sad her silver eyes looked in the dim light of the car. “Can we… talk later?”

“You keep saying that and we’ve still to talk,” her words shot him through the heart and it was all he could do to hang his head. _I’ve been neglecting everything_.

 

* * *

 

“I hate weddings,” Levi muttered.

“Why’s that?” His date asked from his elbow, fingers curled around his arm. “I think they’re fun! And it’s my cousin so of course I’m excited.”

“It’s just one of those cliche places that people think they’re going to meet the love of their life and end up happily ever after. Like if you get someone in this pseudo-romantic setting and dance to a slow song suddenly _that moment_ will happen and _bam_ you’re in love and there’s nothing you can do to change it,” he glanced around the room with irritation.

His moment had happened on a bloody battlefield. In the midst of breathless swings of his blades and the whirring of a waning maneuver gear; the music track to a death scene. He had seen him, riding from the formation with his hand at his mouth, climbing onto and leaping off his saddle with the finesse of a panther. He could still remember the way the blood from Eren’s hand had spilled through the air around him like petals of some nightmarish flower, the way his turquoise eyes glinted in triumph…

“ _Levi_?” The panic in Eren’s voice flooded through him and for a moment he was terrified he might shut down. That his heart might stop and everything would begin again. “Levi?” Petra’s hand tightened on his bicep. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m always pale,” he curled his hand over his face for a moment. _I’m here. I’m not there_.

“Why don’t we have a seat? The cocktail hour is starting so…” The wedding had been outdoors and Petra had loved it more than anything. It fit her outdoorsy cousin and her crazy husband.

“What’s a cocktail hour? Making sure the bridesmaids are nice and drunk before you take them home?” He asked bitterly.

“You know I’m doing you a favor, Captain, the least you could do is be polite…”

“Please don’t call me Captain.”

He wasn’t sure how many cocktails he’d made his way through but he was wading through vodka and rum by the time the music started and people poured into the reception hall. _Did I come to the wrong wedding?_ He hadn’t seen him since they’d arrived and it was all he’d come for. All he wanted was to see Eren’s face again.

 

* * *

 

“Let’s dance,” Eren said and Mikasa jumped. “Do you want to dance with me?”

She looked at him curiously but placed her hand in his anyway as he loosened his tie, “What’s this about?”

“I don’t know we haven’t danced since prom,” he smiled and led her out. “I feel like we haven’t talked since then either…”

“Not this again, I told you it’s nothing…” She rested her ear against his chest and let him catch her waist, sweeping easily into the steps. It was comfortable this way, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and feeling the warmth of his body beneath his suit jacket. He was right, it really had been a long time since they’d just been together. Quiet and loving and comfortable.

“I’m sorry I’ve left you alone,” Eren murmured. “All this time you needed your brother and I’ve been so absent.”

“You always are.”

“Cold,” he winced but pressed his cheek to her hair. “What’s really going on?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” she said finally.

“You’re not alone…”

“Not… like that Eren… I told you I remember things now… and what I remember the most is thinking about how lonely I was. I… didn’t have anyone…”

“In the past? You had me and Armin… and Jean and Historia and Connie and Sasha? I don’t understand,” he looked down to see the bittersweet smile on her face.

“I’d lost so much. I didn’t want to lose you, too, and along the way I forgot that… I couldn’t lose myself.”

“Mikasa? You’re talking nonsense?”

“No, Eren, I’m not! You can’t understand because you--” her silver eyes widened when they stopped moving, looking up at his tanned face. “You can’t understand because you look at someone like that,” she turned her head to look at someone across the dance floor over her shoulder. She didn’t even have to, she’d know who it was just from the way Eren’s green eyes had softened, how affection had spilled into them as his hands slackened on her body, how his heart had jumped against her ear. “Go on, Eren,” she whispered, curling her fingers into his lapel. “Go talk to him.”

“I can’t,” he felt frozen under his eyes. It was the first time he’d seen him since he’d run from him. Since he’d learned who he was and what he’d done… and it was at the same time terrifying and exciting-- pulse pounding in time to the music as Mikasa pulled her body away.

“Well there he is,” Petra said matter-of-factly from his side. “Are you going to just stare at him or are you going to talk to him?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say ‘hi’ I mean usually that’s how people start conversations,” Petra raised an eyebrow. “Look… whatever happened between you two thousand years ago is… well it’s just a dream. Just a memory.”

“Sure it is,” he downed his drink and handed it to her. “What if he hates me?”

“I don’t think Eren Jaeger has the ability to hate you. And if you’re that worried about it just ask him…”

“I’m afraid of the answer,” his voice almost broke as the boy started towards them. “Petra I’m scared.”

“The great Captain Levi, Humanity’s Strongest Soldier, is afraid of a little old psychology student?”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things, Petra… I’m not that man anymore,” he started towards him finally, feet heavy. “And I’ve always been afraid of Eren, I told you he was a monster.”

Petra wasn’t sure how she felt, watching them meet; frozen for a moment as they searched their faces for familiarity and found lines and lips and eyes and angles that matched memories of times long past. Meeting, for the first time, on equal ground with equal footing. At least Eren thought so… he still had no idea… and when Levi caught his face in his hands and said something soft and low and tears spilled down Eren’s face she couldn’t help but clutch her hand to her aching heart. And when their lips met, when Levi’s arms wrapped around his neck, perched on the toes of his dress shoes… when she saw Levi grip his hair tightly; like he’d never let go again, her eyes burned.

“I’m so sorry, Eren,” he kissed the words into his mouth, burning his apology against his skin until everything in the room had faded and Eren was the only thing he had for gravity. Eren was the only thing holding him to this world; this Earth and all its trappings… he was the only thing Levi had ever needed.

“ _I’m so sorry, Eren_ ,” he whispered.

“ _No! Shut up_!”

“ _This is it, sometimes the clock just stops ticking_ …” he choked a laugh around the blood in his mouth.

“ _No… please no_ …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Through to You" by All Time Low.


	15. Show you all that you're missing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi finally gets what he wants. Eren asks his questions. Basically just smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys this was meant to be updated earlier but obviously I'm being punished so here it is.
> 
> Next up are the three canon chapters; we get to see how their relationship developed and (unfortunately) what happened at the end that's been driving Levi crazy.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome

He wasn’t about to let this moment go, despite the fact that hardly any words had passed between them in the few short minutes since they’d been reunited. He could feel Eren’s breath on his neck, the warmth of their bodies together as they swayed on the floor to some soft song that he couldn’t identify, the silk of his brown hair between his fingers in the hand that hadn’t left since their kiss had broken. He didn’t want to speak, to break the spell that they were under, not now that Eren was drawing his face back and touching their lips together once more, not now that his fingers had worked their way beneath Levi’s jacket to press against the small of his back.

Not now.

Please not now.

Not when he had the chance to dance with him, to give him passing kisses, to hold him close and pretend his heart wasn’t aching. It was a moment he wouldn’t have traded anything for. To pretend for a moment that he wouldn’t have to face the consequences of everything he’d ever done to Eren, every lie he’d ever told; every choice he’d ever made.

“Levi?”

“Yes, Eren?” He lifted his head to look up at him, heart fluttering in his chest. He had never been able to help the way his green eyes drew him in; even in his dreams they hung like beacons that drew him from the recesses of his mind and held him, suspended, for Eren to look right through.

“I--” Where did he begin? Where could he begin?

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Levi shook his head and drew away from him, catching his hand. He spotted Armin dancing with Jean cheek to cheek, but his blue eyes were staring Levi down; as if he knew exactly what was going on. _When doesn’t he?_ He looked away guiltily and pulled Eren off the dance floor.

“I have… so many questions.”

“I know you do, Eren,” Levi answered softly. He wondered how long he could keep this at bay? How long he could keep from having to tell Eren everything…

Unfortunately it didn't seem to be fated to be long. The dam broke as soon as the elevator door closed: “What happened? Why did you leave me when I was a kid? Why didn’t you tell me you knew me when I moved in? Why did you keep everyone from me? Why did you lie to me? What’s going on that I don’t know ab--” A hard hand caught the back of his neck and jerked him down into a kiss, anything to shut him up.

“Christ you never shut up,” that was the starting gun. Eren’s hands caught his waist, leverage to shove him back against the elevator wall, ripping his pressed shirt from his waistband to catch his hands up against the hard lines of his latissimus dorsi. Everything was so familiar this time; the shift of their bodies together, the tongue hungrily tangled with his, the ever-so-subtle grind of Levi’s hips against his driving him mad.

Questions still nagged at the edge of his mind, flashes of bloodied images of the past, heated reminders of hands that couldn’t unbuckle the fastens of their harnesses fast enough, the vague recollection that this had been done before: sex to stop a conversation neither of them wanted to have.

The elevator door opened and Eren almost whimpered when Levi nibbled his lip, drawing away and breathing heavily on Eren’s collar, “Lemme go.”

“Not gonna happen,” Levi purred and Eren flushed out of embarrassment, hiding in Levi’s neck when he wouldn’t let him draw away beneath the crushing wrap of his arms. Levi glared at those who entered the elevator with a challenge in his dark blue eyes, daring them to say or do anything with his hand fisted in Eren’s hair, as if anyone in there had any idea how long he’d waited to get this chance. _Sober Eren_. Well that was certainly a treat. “Know anybody with a room here?” Levi’s mouth pressed against his ear, his voice reverberating against his eardrum… all of it went straight to his groin.

“I have one, w-we didn’t want to drive back,” Eren whispered as quietly as possible but he knew that everyone in the elevator could hear them anyway. Levi shifted his hips and Eren whined, barely able to keep from bucking back as the door open. “This is our floor,” Eren jerked him out of the elevator and Levi cast a smirk over his shoulder at the people left behind just before Eren shoved him up against the wall and caught his belt, tugging it open with one hand as he captured Levi’s lips and kissed him hungrily. He’d spent too much time on that elevator pressed against what he wanted, he wasn’t about to take his time… at least not until Levi broke away and caught the lapels of his jacket.

“Not fast,” Levi murmured thickly. “Not this time…”

Eren felt his words as if Levi had stroked his tongue down his spine, breath catching in his throat, “Slow.” His voice almost broke and let Levi curl his fingers into his hand, suddenly extremely nervous.

“Which?” Eren led him to the room almost shyly, seemingly calm from the outside, but his pulse was rabbit-quick beneath his skin. “Are you nervous?” Levi murmured as he shut the door behind them and releasing Eren’s hand.

“A little…” Levi embraced the deja vu that washed over him; a nervous teen in the moonlight of a cottage in the middle of the woods, confident but unpracticed, eager to please and clumsy.

“Should I…”

“Let me undress you,” Levi murmured. He watched the way Eren’s eyes fluttered over the jolt of pleasure that the words had given him, smirking just slightly. _I’m nervous_. He could remember feeling the same way they first time they’d been together all those years ago; after such a tenuous start to their relationship. It had been years since he’d been intimate with _anyone_ then. His life had been consumed with titans and bloodshed, not love and affection and he hadn’t even been sure if he had been capable of loving someone… much less making love to them the way they deserved.

“Okay,” Eren swallowed, licking his lips before Levi kissed them; slow and sweet as his fingers worked at Eren’s tie and cast it to the floor. He surrendered himself for the time being, sucking in air at the feel of Levi’s warm hands pulling his blazer off his shoulders, lips and teeth finding his earlobe and that soft spot he liked so much; smoothing his hands over the crisp fabric of Eren’s buttondown. Levi could have groaned then, the feel of firm flesh beneath pressed cotton was possibly his favorite sensation, and Eren was always so _warm_.

“Do you remember…” his voice hesitated as he unbuttoned his shirt. “The first time we were…”

“Yeah…” Eren’s voice was breathy, needy, tilting his head back as Levi’s mouth found his pulse point and sucked, fingers sloping over Eren’s chest beneath the shirt that was barely clinging to his shoulders. “I was…”

“You were _young_ ,” Levi murmured against his skin, nipping at his collarbone and sliding the fabric off his arms to let his palms glide over the defined muscles of his shoulders. “Soft and sweet.”

“I was… ever sweet?” He managed against the feeling of thumbs brushing his nipples, leathered palms raking his ribcage.

“You are always sweet,” Levi was taking his time, ignoring the pressure of Eren’s erection against his hip as he sucked and licked at every inch of tanned skin until Eren was gripping his ass in his hands and pulling them together; desperate for more. Desperate in the same way Levi was but… _This is my only chance_. He fisted his hand in Eren’s hair and dragged them together.

Eren could lose himself in Levi’s kisses, in how his tongue tasted and how his teeth nipped at his lips, in how desperate they became; hot and open mouthed kisses that had his hands hurrying down Levi’s body. Once nudity had rendered him vulnerable, shy from being exposed to his new lover, but now Eren caught their dicks and with a few hard strokes had them panting.

Levi was starting to lose control of this, of himself, of Eren; then again when did he ever have any control over Eren? They fell to the bed in a mess of limbs, Eren scrambling to remain on top with a knee placed firmly between Levi’s legs.

“You damned brat,” Levi snapped, wriggling when his favorite hot mouth found his chest and marked him; oh how he marked him. His sucks and kisses and _bites_ had him writhing until his fingers had tangled back into Eren’s hair and that mouth had made its way to sink teeth into the tender flesh of his thighs. It was so familiar that for a moment he could have sworn he saw stone walls and flickering firelight even as Eren’s tongue slid like velvet over his head and his lips pulled him into his mouth, fingers curled around his base.

“ _Eren_ ,” his voice was like an echo against Eren’s mind as he dipped his head and let his cock slide into his mouth, tongue soft and adventurous. The way his long, languid sucks left Levi’s chest quaking and fingers grasping for purchase on Eren’s shoulders and the pressure on his slit with each pass had him dragging Eren up. “Fuck me, if you’re going to for god’s sake.”

Eren’s lips, shiny and slick with saliva and what Levi desperately hoped was pre-cum, were passed over by his tongue; green eyes dark in the dim hotel room light. He moved, silently padding to his bag and producing a bottle of lube, folding a condom into his hand.

He took the moment to look Eren over, sitting up on his elbows and trying to ignore the way his body was aching and desperate as the boy walked towards him, pantherlike in his movements. Everything really _was_ familiar; from the way he knelt on the bed between his knees to slide on the condom to the way he leaned down to kiss him before tracing his fingers against his perineum and sliding the first digit of his finger into him. It was all the same except for one important fact: neither of them would ever be those people again. And that made it all the more exciting.

“Heh,” he could feel the tremble of Eren’s limbs and looked up at him, catching his hands on his biceps as his finger slid further in, slick with lube.

“What’re you laughing about?” He murmured through his haze.

“I’m nervous…” If there was ever a definitive moment he could say he was in love with Eren Jaeger it was likely that moment. The moment when Eren let go of whatever inhibitions he had, whatever confidence he bore, and let the nerves that bubbled in his stomach spill onto his face. There, in the most vulnerable position he could have put himself into, he broke the way he had all those centuries ago and let Levi pull him down into a kiss.

And when they joined none of the panicked, heated desperation from earlier spoiled the moment of mingled groans and tangled limbs that left them both shaking. As if their lives from the past and the present had finally met; and with each certain movement of their bodies, with each building thrust that had them biting and clawing and aching they drew closer and closer to the edge of understanding. Understanding each other, understanding why they would always end up this way, why they could never be parted.

Because when Eren came and sent Levi tumbling after the last thing they thought to do was to part. Because for a moment in the indescribable bliss that left them shattered the past and present were violently and passionately forced together; and neither was sure who they were anymore without the other tangled in their arms.

After, with Eren’s fingers trailing lazily down his spine and his soft, sucking kisses on his throat, Levi left himself relax in and afterglow he hadn’t been sure was really possible. He closed his eyes and curled his hand over Eren’s hip, tilting his head down for a kiss when Eren moved his head.

“Levi,” Eren’s voice was a growl; low and rumbling as he caught his fingers in his hair.

”Hmm?” There was a soft, contented look on Levi’s face that made Eren’s heart melt, despite the concerns that were still worrying around in his head.

”Can we talk now?” He murmured, closing his eyes against Levi’s hand as he lifted it to touch his face, cradling his jaw.

”It can’t wait?” Levi felt the pressure of fear build in his chest again, willing him to settle down and forget again… to stop asking him to tell him the truth.

”Levi I’ve waited so long…” he whispered.

He searched his face, brushing his thumb across his bruised lips, heart aching in his chest. Perhaps it really was time he stopped lying to him, to himself.

”Alright. We’ll talk now,” his voice nearly broke on the words as he leaned forward to kiss him for what felt like the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "O'Child" by Nevertheless.


	16. And if you close your eyes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi finally tells the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was a doozy to write **AND THE FIRST "CANON" CHAPTER**. Originally it was supposed to be in third person but as I was writing it I felt that it was easier to get into Levi's head through first person. 
> 
> So this chapter is in Levi's perspective for the most part. There should be good delineation between when Levi is telling his story and when they're just together. You guys asked for his story. And you aren't going to like it.
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome

I can remember the first time I saw you. All bright eyes in a dark dungeon cell with this wicked grin on your face. I swear you took my breath away with the heat of the hatred you bore. It was breathtaking in a way that made me ache to learn more; what had made you the way you were-- what could I do to save you to find out? 

Your words were the reason I wanted to save you. There was something about the way they rolled off your tongue, something about the way you let them burst in the air; unashamed and unafraid and _deliriously_ angry.

 

* * *

 

“Is that when you fell in love with me?” Eren asked softly, sprawled out on his chest and cast in starlight. He leaned down to kiss his skin, to nip at his collarbone, to kiss his lips and relish in the feel.  
  
“Maybe… I can’t be sure,” he tangled his fingers into Eren’s hair and searched his face. “You can’t keep interrupting me, you know?”

“Yeah I know,” he nestled his cheek against his sternum and closed his eyes; feeling his words more than he heard them. _Tell me everything._

 

* * *

 

I never had any fear of you. The only fear that I felt was _for_ you. You had become a puppet, even if you were _my_ puppet, something that was the last thing I wanted. I had to watch you struggle to learn everything, I had to stand beside you as you learned, but I couldn’t do anything to assist you.

You were dangerous. You always had been, I suppose, a dangerous creature that threatened to swallow everything whole and devour it to get your way.. but you were more dangerous to yourself than you were to others. I had to teach you how to trust again. I had to teach others how to trust you.

_Levi laughed._

I suppose I was more of a professor than a protector at this point in the story. Teaching my squad to care for you, not to fear you, to take you as one of their own. I can remember standing between you and them, watching the looks of fear on their faces and the glinting of the blades in their hands. I was but one against many in the fight for your survival.

I think I loved you then, Eren, but maybe I didn’t know it. I loved you in the way that the grass is green and the sky is blue… it was just there and I didn’t have to think about it. Even if I didn’t know why or how those things were; I just knew. Even if I didn’t have the word blue or green or grass or sky… it was there. Love. In its most simple form. It was there when I watched you hesitate when we ran from the female titan, it was there when I lost my squad... 

I don’t know if I could explain to you how terrified I was when I heard you roar. I knew something had happened… there was only one reason you’d have shifted… I had never been so scared in my life. In that moment I thought over everything what could I have done differently to protect you. What could have been done to save my team. I could retrace my steps a thousand times, even now I do sometimes, working each movement I made until I… I always told you to make whatever decision you regretted least… because all I ever seemed to do was make regrettable decisions.

 

* * *

 

Eren kissed the tremble from his lips, pushing his hair back from his forehead. Levi’s hands caught his face roughly, tightly curling around his jaw and up behind his ears. For a long moment they remained that way, Eren’s lip caught between his teeth and breathing synchronised. Eren pressed their mouths together again, releasing Levi’s catch, and lifted his head to kiss the heavy lids of his eyes as Levi’s hands released from their grip on his head. He left kisses on his brows and cheekbones and little nips on his jaw until Levi let a smile sneak across his lips, sadness dissipating.  
  
“You’ve still got a long way to go…” Eren whispered.  
  
“I told you I’d tell you the story, I didn’t tell you how long it would take me,” Levi replied patiently. “Do you want to hear it or not?”  
  
“Sometimes… I want you to get to the end…”  
  
“There’s no happy ending for us, Eren,” he murmured and watched the boy’s eyes sadden. 

 

* * *

 

I remember the first time I said that to you. _There’s no happy endings here._ The look on your face was odd to me. For someone who had seen so much death… to think that somewhere deep down you still believed that there would ever be something like a happy ending… I still can’t decide how that made me feel. It was this flustered combination of hatred and hope.

I hated you because you, of all fucking people, believed that there could ever be a happy ending for _anyone_. That somehow you thought that fairy tales would come true and we’d really defeat the titans and see the ocean and fucking explore the world… that somehow all this bullshit about love and dreams would be proven true. 

At the same time your ignorant bliss brought me hope. I don’t know... I think I never had any hope to begin with. Maybe once. When I was young and impressionable like you. Maybe twice when Erwin picked me up. I hated _him_ for a while, too.

I don’t know if you’d ever felt that way. I always just assumed you were always an all cosuming power... I should have asked back then. There were a lot of things I should have asked back then. A lot of things I wanted to have answers for that I was too scared to bring up.  
  
 _“I can’t imagine you scared,” Eren interrupted._

I imagine that’s what you would have said then, too. That I was the fearless soldier. Maybe I was in some cases. But fearless people are stupid. If you don’t have anything to lose then why fight? Why go out every day and risk your fucking limbs facing brainless monsters?

I was scared of a lot of things. Maybe not titans. Not really titans. They were child’s play, mindless things with stupid looking faces and friggin’ silly grins. I was scared of things involving people. _People_ are terrifying, Eren. You never know what they’re going to do or what they’re going to think or when they’re finally going to break. I could predict the movements of a titan. I knew how to kill titans. I didn’t know what to do about people.

And you were a person I understood even less than anyone else. When I was injured inside the walls, dealing with the stupid goddamn priest, I remember I kept thinking about you. I suppose I thought about you a lot.

 _“That’s cute,” Eren laughed when Levi covered his mouth with his hand._  

Mostly because I didn’t know how you were. I couldn’t see your face or hear your voice. I couldn’t know if you’d recovered. If anyone had even bothered to keep an eye on you. Humans react differently to things but there were often a certain set of displayed emotions… all you seemed to display was _anger_ and I worried that would be a problem without me there.

I wonder if you know that the only times I’d ever been terrified in my life… white knuckled, jaw clenchingly terrified… were about you. I was a cocky shit when I was a kid. I grew into a serious man. You made me _nervous_ in a way I had never experienced. Especially when I couldn’t see you…

 

* * *

 

“They call that worrying, you know?” Eren rolled over onto his side and stretched. “Did it go away?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The worry?”  
  
“Hell no. I was fucking terrified the entire time you were gone. You’re the most unpredictable piece of shit I’ve ever met,” Levi sat up and looked down at him, smoothing his hand over his waist.  
  
“I think once you told me I was predictable,” Eren quirked an eyebrow.  
  
“Mmm… you’re both.”  
  
“That’s a cop out!” Eren laughed. “What am I?”  
  
“I don’t know,” it was the most honest answer he’d ever given.

 

* * *

 

When you came back… when I saw all the damage that had been done… the only thing I could think of was to protect you. I had come full circle. All the way around from the fucking beginning. I came from having a squad, training them to trust you, teaching you to trust them-- to teaching you to stop being fucking suicidal and training them to be a squad.

That first night I came back and you’d barely been sleeping, cleaning the whole fucking house for me, anxiously trying to make everything perfect… maybe that’s when I had my first inkling. The first time I thought maybe I was in love with you…

_“Of course…”_

I was just so fucking relieved to see you. I don’t think you understand. I’d just spent weeks in Sina with this fucking pig, worrying at the thought of you until you were a hole in my head, and then when I rode up _there you were_ with this big stupid grin on your face. I… was at the same time relieved and scared. Yet another one of those pantshittingly terrifying moments in my life. Yet another time it involved you.

Maybe that’s why I fell so hard for you. You were the only person that got under my skin and stayed there. I still remember the first time you kissed me… that stupid flower crown. Wasn’t I supposed to be telling a story…? I was getting to something specific. There are so many things I wanted to tell you then. At the moment I… at the moment I regretted so many things in my life. Things with you above all.

There was so much that went unsaid between us. I’m back to this again… Jesus Eren I can’t even begin to start. I always wanted to tell you so many things. I wanted to hold you fucking close and press you into me until you burned me up. Until I wasn’t anything but a part of you.

I’m not the same man I was. I’ll never be that man again. He’s different from me, fundamentally so, but I feel so close to him. I feel like I can pass on everything he felt to you because he couldn’t. He needed you… your past self to know all these things and he didn’t get the chance to say it. I need you to know. I have to tell you everything and I can’t because it’s too fucking painful.

I can’t do it, Eren.

You were so beautiful with all your fire and life and determination. You were everything. You gave me hope. And not just any fucking hope, Eren, I was… there for a while I had nothing. I didn’t know what I’d do when it all ended. In the matter of a few moments I had gone from Humanity’s Strongest Soldier to Humanity’s Strongest Killer and then… then I had you. And none of those titles mattered anymore. You gave me something to strive towards. You gave me a god damned dream and you were the only thing that I had to rely on to keep me fucking sane.

That day. The day it all ended… Jesus Eren the day it all ended was a fucking nightmare.

It’s as if… everything came crashing down.

All that hope. Every last shred of hope you’d given me. Every precious moment I spent with you. Every minute of every hour of every day we had to steal away from the world that we so greedily spent together… all of them slipped away between my fingers. I kept reaching out for them, whatever ribbons of hope I had to hold on to… I needed them. I couldn’t think that everything we’d done together was for nothing.

I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without you. When the war was over you promised we’d… you always swore we’d go somewhere together. We’d see the fucking ocean and climb the highest mountains and get lost in a fucking lake made of white hot sand.

You gave me something to fucking live for.

 

* * *

 

His hands shook as Eren pulled him into his arms, trembling against his bare shoulder as a horrible whimper was ripped from his throat involuntarily. The pain of two thousand years rushed over him and he grit his teeth against it, biting back the sounds as tears rolled down his face. As they collected on Eren’s skin and gathered in the dip of his collarbone. An ocean of regret and self hatred.

“I took it all away…” he managed, gritting his teeth against the tremor that shook him, digging his nails into Eren’s back. “I took everything away from you… from me. I watched the fucking light fade out of your eyes.”  
  
“What?” Eren whispered.

“That’s it, Eren,” Levi murmured. “That’s the story you wanted to hear… all this… fucking time you wanted me to tell you the truth? I fucking loved you. I loved your stupid fucking smile and the… and the fury in your eyes and the anger in your blood. I love you more than anything anyone has ever loved in this world’s fucking miserable existence… and I’m the one who took you from the world…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY I'M SO BAD AT FIRST PERSON. OTL
> 
> Chapter title from "Pompeii" by Bastille.
> 
> See you next week! <3


	17. Does it almost feel like.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First real canon chapter. What really happened all those years ago? And what do they have to do with what's going on now?

The quiet in the room was stifling, suffocating as if someone had sucked all the life from the air and left it stagnant and tense. Eren cradled him there, their skin mismatched, pale against tan, in what little starlight escaped through the curtains; a milky beam that cast an eerie gray tone over the room. In grayscale everything seemed so murky, edges frayed and mottled with pinpricks of light that left Eren blinking and burying his face into Levi’s shoulder, trying to make sense of everything. Trying to pull some sense from the memories curling around him in the dark and licking cold stripes against the nape of his neck.

_Levi? Killed me?_

He couldn’t remember, as hard as he tried to draw the memories back the slipped between the cracks in his fingers and washed away like the ocean.

“The ocean,” Eren said softly and Levi lifted his head. “I saw the ocean…”  
  
“Yeah you did…” Levi pressed his palm to Eren’s chest, feeling the war drum beneath his hand beat tirelessly onwards. _It’s not a war drum anymore._ It didn’t have to be. Eren was no longer the banner bearer for a battle that never ended on a bloodied field of broken blades and shattered spirits. He was a college student, not a soldier.  
  
“We were right there…”  
  
“What do you remember, Eren?” He caught his face in his hands gently, drawing his gaze.  
  
“I remember…” his eyes flickered, brows furrowed into creases.  
  
“I… d-don’t pressure me!” Eren clenched his eyes shut.  
  
Levi kissed his lips gently, relieved when Eren kissed him back, “I’m going to--”  
  
“Don’t! Where are you going?” Panic spilled into Eren’s voice, gripping Levi’s wrist tightly.  
  
“I’m just going to shower,” Levi caressed the side of his face. “I won’t leave you this time, okay?” Eren swallowed the end of his sentence with an open mouthed kiss, tanned hands sliding up Levi’s back. “Just a shower.”  
  
“Okay,” Eren whispered but his hands lingered, holding him there. “You’ll come back?”  
  
“In just a few minutes,” Levi kissed him again. “I’ll come back faster if you let me go,” he teased, prying himself away. He needed to escape, just for a few minutes, to give Eren time… to give himself time.

Eren watched him pause in the doorway to look over, offering a smile before flopping down on the bed. He could see Levi’s face clearly now, sharp in the fragments of memory that rained into his mind; once incomplete and wanting, now cutting the softened edges of his mind into hard shapes and lines that took him back. That drew him in until he was pounding breathlessly on a horse through thirty meter trees, thighs chafed by the saddle between his legs. Then he was soaring between buildings effortlessly, flipping and gliding and skidding between towers with breathless excitement; watching the rippling cloak of his captain before him.

 

* * *

 

“Eren!” He looked up at the sharp voice, blinking curiously.  
  
“Captain!” The shifter stood from his dinner, saluting without hesitation.  
  
“Bring Jean and Armin, Erwin wants to see you all.” The look on Levi’s face had Eren scrambling, hurrying to find his squadmates. He could imagine what Erwin wanted them for, considering they were on the cusp of a battle Eren never thought he’d see. What some were calling the _Final Battle_. To Eren that sounded a little too epic and too illustrious. What it was, really, was their final chance. The last hope they had to eliminate the threat to humanity once and for all… and standing at the head of it all--  
  
“Eren!”  
  
“Shit I didn’t--” Eren turned abruptly, catching a glimpse of bare chests and the oddly arousing sight of Jean tangled around his best friend. “Commander Erwin wants to see you, horny bastards.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah we know…” Jean grumbled, clothes rustling back into place with more than just a few stolen kisses.  
  
“Guys!”  
  
“We’re going!” Armin’s laugh was easy but not quite carefree as he caught Eren’s shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t be mad, Eren.”  
  
“Everybody’s banging today, you think I haven’t noticed?”  
  
“I think you’re mad,” Jean followed them, falling into step with Eren.  
  
“I’m just… nervous… I guess?” Eren offered with a smile. “Tomorrow we’ll ride out and try to deliver the antidote but more people are going to die… Titans and humans alike.”  
  
“That can’t be helped,” Armin tilted his chin ever so slightly. “It’s the only way.”

Eren knew well enough that Armin wasn’t about to send them on a wild goosechase. He was too smart, too talented… he had already thought out every possible action and deduced the outcome before any of them had even comprehended the consequences. But that didn’t stop the fear. _What am I afraid of?_ He looked up and caught Levi’s gaze as he stood outside the office door. _Right? What is there to be afraid of?_ But there was fear in his lover’s eyes, a strange sort of shine that unsettled Eren’s skin.

He didn’t sleep that night, tossing and turning in the heat of his bed, altogether too cold and too hot in the same moment. He rose, pulling his harness on and stepping into his boots, nervous tension building in his chest. He wanted to climb into the tower and watch the sunrise, sit on the edge of the cool stone and listen to the birds chirp as if nothing strange or frightening was about to happen that day.

He could hear the sounds of lovers in their final throes, the whispered promises of return. Hear the echoes of hope and laughter that still remained in the halls as if to spite the calm of the night. _Lovers._ He smiled faintly. Levi was right, lovers were always so full of hopes and dreams. He wasn’t sure he could be considered a lover, he’d never given any thought to the future.

So why now? Why was it that on the cusp of achieving his dream… he was thinking about the future? About the end of the war and _Levi_. He’d barely seen him over the past two weeks; always working, always something to take care of for Erwin or Hanji… always something. Something to drag him out of Eren’s arms and away from his bed and away from the only peace Eren knew.

 _What happens to me?_ He started to wonder as he wandered up the stairs to the belltower. _When all this is over?_ He assumed he would just continue living. That he would see the ocean with Armin and Mikasa and explore the mountains that spewed fire… that he would finally be able to run outside the walls… but both of them had some purpose. Armin had Jean. They would end up together and grow old together and lead humanity into the future. Mikasa would likely do the same. She was too good to die, too strong to lose, she would be valuable to recovering lost lands and exploring the outside world.

But Eren? Well he hadn’t really given that much thought. He’d always spent his time thinking about the next move against the titans, thinking about what they had taken and why… but what happened after? Would they let him live despite being a titan shifter? Would Levi be forced to kill him?  
  
That thought was unsettling, though not unexpected. It was what he was meant to do, after all, end his life. Somewhere along the way Eren had almost forgotten, though he was always reminded of it in the end; perhaps it was the cold stone beneath his hands as he looked out over the grounds beneath him, recalling the cool marble of the courtroom.  
  
“Couldn’t sleep?” A deep voice echoed around the belltower, sending sparks of warmth through Eren’s body in the chill of the night.  
  
“Levi…” his name was a prayer, their lips meeting to consecrate it. To seal the invocation between them like a sacred psalm that only they would share.

Had someone bothered to look they would have seen them silhouetted against the shadow of the bell, the last hope for humanity and humanity’s strongest tangled together in an embrace that washed away all their fears and uncertainties. The only thing at that moment that mattered was the next kiss, the haphazard unbuckling of harnesses, the hands smoothing over marred and unmarked skin in the cool midnight air.

Hot mouths roamed over hard flesh, bodies rutting desperately together; desperate to forget, to relax, to release. Teeth, tongues, and teasing fingers left them gasping; laid out on outspread cloaks. Eren could feel the chilled stone beneath him, the burn of an embroidered emblem scraping his back, hear each harsh exhale sharp in his ear.

They were a symphony of emotion, each gasp and moan another note in the cacophonous crescendo their lives were rushing towards. The forte of an orchestral piece that stole your breath and rose gooseflesh on your skin and left you wanting more; and waiting. Waiting for that next swell of rousing music before the end. The end. The burning words that seared with finality on the skin of the user. Whose hiss lent an odd eerie quality to the already haunting composition of life.  
  
There was something reassuring about the weight of Levi’s body on his, the hot rush of his breath over his sweat soaked skin in post-orgasmic haze. He wished it would never end, that they’d never have to get up from the rough fabric of their cloaks and that the wings of freedom burning into his back would never leave, that the soft kisses to his neck would never stop. His chest sobbed before he could stop it, head falling back against the pile of clothes and harnesses beneath him.  
  
“Eren?” His voice was questioning but not curious. No, Eren knew Levi wasn’t uncertain about what was happening. Levi could read him like a book, stare deep into him and rip him open and flay him alive with a single glance. There was no misunderstanding in that tone.  
  
“It’s okay… I’m okay…” He closed his eyes against the burn, covering his eyes with his arm. Anything so Levi wouldn’t see. _I’m a grown man what am I getting upset about?_ He felt a hand on his face and turned his cheek into it, kissing the rough palm lightly.  
  
“Eren,” he said his name again, fingers curling into his jaw and turning his head back. Eren found him looking down with steel eyes, face soft in the starlight. “It’s all ending tomorrow,” the emptiness in his voice made Eren’s heart ache as Levi’s fingers laced through his against the stone floor.  
  
“Yeah I guess it is…”

 

* * *

 

Eren was sound asleep when Levi walked out, sprawled over the bed as always. He looked peaceful, barely stirring when Levi stroked his fingers through his hair and leaned down to kiss him before sitting on the edge and staring down at the mess of suits on the floor. Eren had taken everything rather well, he supposed he hadn’t been clear about it… he hadn’t told him the whole story. Not yet. He needed Eren to remember it, to remember everything that had happened and yet… it was the last thing he wanted.  
  
 **Erwin Smith:** Have you talked to him?

The words burned his eyes as he checked his phone, smearing his finger over the screen in irritation. _Have I talked to him?_ He looked down at the sleeping boy, trailing his fingers into the curve of his neck. _Sort of._  
  
Just be patient

He typed his reply and dropped the phone on the floor, tucking himself under Eren’s arm and nestling close, chuckling a little when Eren reflexively curled around him and pulled him into his body, nestling his chin on top of Levi’s head. _Strange boy._ He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Eren’s collarbone. _I love you._

 

* * *

 

Levi left feather light kisses on Eren’s brow, smoothing away the cares and fear that had gathered there. He sat on his waist, hands braced against the tanned muscles of his chest, accepting kisses when offered and worshipping Eren’s neck when they weren’t. He wanted to suspend what little time they had, what precious time they could steal away from their impending final battle together as hope and soldier. Something kept time in the distance, a subtle passing of the hand of a metronome, keeping rhythm for a song he thought he recognized. The sound of their lives slipping away, out of their control for the last time.  
  
“What will you do?” Eren whispered, breaking the silence.  
  
“When?” The rhythm of the metronome slipped away, no longer beating its incessant time into Levi’s skull in an attempt to draw forth some shattered tune he couldn’t recall; the song of victory on a battlefield of broken bodies and shaking souls.

“You know when,” Eren traced a line under his pectoral absently.  
  
“The sun’s going to rise soon,” Levi sat up, knocking Eren onto his back in his haste. “We should get some sleep. You’re going to need the rest,” he started to slide back into his clothes.  
  
“Levi.”  
  
“No, Eren, I don’t want to talk about this.”  
  
“You always avoid me!” Eren propped himself up on his elbow. “Talk to me!”  
  
“Eren Jaeger I do not want to talk about anything until it’s over. I don’t want to think about it!” His hands shook as he fastened himself into his pants. “It’s going to all be over and then--”  
  
“Then what?”  
  
“No!” He said it more sharply this time.  
  
“I want to know what to expect!” Eren caught his wrist. “I’ve never considered this before! Until today I never… what are we going to be?”  
  
“Eren I said I--”  
  
“You’re scared…” Eren murmured, voice awestruck as his fingers tightened on his wrist.  
  
“We’ve had this discussion before! Only an idiot isn’t afraid of death,” Levi tried to pull out of his grip, damn his powerful hands.  
  
“You don’t know what you want.”  
  
“I try not to think about it.”  
  
“Why?” Eren pressed.  
  
“God damn it! Why can’t you take a fucking order!?”  
  
“What don’t you want to think about!?”  
  
“What am I going to be, Eren!?” He finally barked at him. “What’s my fucking purpose after this? All I’ve been for almost a decade is a titan slayer, now I’m a killer, what do I become when it’s all over? Am I a hero or a criminal?”  
  
Eren reached out and caught his face, eyes panicked, “Levi don’t… say things like that! You’re Humanity’s Strongest!”  
  
“I’m a soldier! If there’s nothing left to fight what am I?” He grit his teeth.  
  
“You’re Levi,” his voice softened.  
  
“Who is that? Without the mantle of the Scouting Legion?” He couldn’t bring himself to look into Eren’s eyes, hands stilling on his harness.  
  
“You’re whoever you want to be, Levi,” Eren told him fiercely. “You can do anything you want to. Once the titans are gone we can… we can see the ocean and… do whatever we want!” Hope had begun to build in his chest. _This_ was what he had been worrying about earlier. What he would do. Where he would go. What he would become. Why had he even been thinking about it? “We’ll do it together. And if we’re still confused about who we are then… at least we have each other to remind us. We’ll always find a new purpose even if my purpose is just to love you!” He had never seen the emotion on Levi’s face that softened it now. An odd sort of reverent awe mingled with surprise and-- most surprisingly-- love.

“The ocean… sounds nice… dirty…” he muttered.  
  
“Who cares!? I… I just want to see it with you! We’ll see it together and… and be together and nothing will ever separate us again,” the tremble in Eren’s lips betrayed his words. The unspoken understanding that none of this was certain passed between them, but Eren crashed headlong through that too. “Tomorrow everything _will_ end just like you said. But it won’t be us. We won’t end. We’re going to live! Because I haven’t lived through all this shit to die on the day I get what I’ve always dreamt of! I won’t die tomorrow because I can’t! I can’t have done all this for nothing!”

And Levi believed him.

 

* * *

 

“You just can’t let me die in peace, can you brat?” Levi dug his blades in, limbs trembling under the weight of his wounds. “Promise me, Eren, that you’ll find me again.”

“But--” He saw beams of light breaking through into the darkness of his titan shell.

“No buts. Promise me. Tell me right now,” Eren could feel him peeling the titan flesh back from his tired body, dragging him onto the sand, the sand he’d always wanted to see, could feel the warm rush of blood from Levi’s body with each struggling movement.

“I can’t… what if…”

“This can’t be the end,” his Captain’s voice broke as he pulled Eren into a one armed hug, cradling the back of his neck and sliding his fingers into his hair. “Promise me Eren, you said… you said we wouldn’t need to know who we were… because we wouldn’t be apart...” his voice was harsh and broken again Eren’s ear as the cold steel of Levi’s blade pressed against his spine.

“I’ll find you…” He wrapped his arms around him, the sounds of the ocean washing up around them. 

“Because I… am nothing without you…” Levi choked out, the taste of blood bitter in his mouth.

“I love you,” he couldn’t even feel the cold bite of saltwater anymore, the warmth of his Captain’s body against his… he couldn’t feel his heartbeat fading or the blade sliding between his vertebrae.  
  
He couldn’t hear his captain’s final words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY! Sorry this chapter took so long!
> 
> As always:
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: the rhythm of a metronome, fic: metronome
> 
> Chapter title from "Pompeii" by Bastille.


	18. You've been here before.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last canon chapter. What really happened?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end~

The dawn of the last day peaked grey and miserable in the cold, flurries of snow rushed around them as they rode, squads breaking off into their formations with Erwin directing. Even without an arm he was in control, sharp witted and determined-- with Jean and Armin riding to his left. Eren thought of Armin like a prince now, tall in the saddle with long blonde hair half tied back from his handsome face. With his straight shoulders and bright blue eyes he was nearly Erwin in miniature if it weren’t for the soft angles of his features. He directed the formations with surety, making tactical decisions without the approval of Erwin, Levi, or Hanji. He had come a long way in the past years. Yet it was Jean that impressed Eren the most, dare he say, riding beside Armin in stride.

If Eren and Jean had ever been antagonistic towards each other it had developed into a friendly rivalry. They tested each other’s limits and returned friendly pranks and jests… and Jean was always there with his honed technique for saying just exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Things that Eren often needed to hear right at that moment. He was now Erwin’s Acting: the Commander that called the shots in the field directly and made his own decisions based on the situation, though he relied on Armin for his tactical support on a constant basis.

Eren remembered that morning before they’d left, watching Jean lean against Armin’s saddle, fingers toying with his long hair as they spoke softly. He had been looking for Levi in the formation and found Armin’s slender hand caught in the straps of Jean’s gear, pulling him down to kiss, their words passing silently instead. It was too sweet to look away, the kiss of two people who knew that this could be their last day on Earth, the kiss of two people whose trust and love ran deep enough that words needed be spoken between them… and Eren prayed with all his might that they would survive.

 _Please._ Eren looked to his side and saw Levi watching him, steel eyes flickering with some sort of emotion. He had been gone early this morning, Eren had only felt the flutter of his kisses against his eyelids and whispered affections before Levi had left him there-- warm and empty in the worst way. _Please just let us survive this day._

“Don’t look so nervous, Eren,” Levi raised his voice just slightly over the din of the horses. “We’re going to be fine.”  
  
“This siege is risky, even if the antidote manages to work…”  
  
“There will still be deaths… we knew that, damn it Eren haven’t you--”  
  
“I _know_ ,” Eren interrupted him. The air was too cold around them, pressing into his lungs like shards of ice. Or perhaps that was the edge of fear that ran cold in his blood as they neared their destination, pounding through forests and open fields as snow whipped at his face and clung to the furs of his winter uniform. He felt as though his life were flashing before his eyes, cast in sharp relief against the white flurries, every decision he’d ever made had led to this point. The point of no return.

“--they’re meeting us-- Eren at all costs--” He could hear the call over the howl of the wind from Armin’s direction, the agreement from Jean as the Commander looked over his shoulder at where Levi and Eren rode side by side.  
  
“Eren it’s time,” Levi told him seriously and the words made his heart beat wildly in his chest. Time. Time for them to fight. To achieve his dream.

Yet, for one single moment-- as time froze in the chilled ocean air-- he almost wished it wasn’t happening. That they weren’t about to clash with titans for the final time. Because all the emotion of all his years flooded into him and made hot desperation spill into his chest. He would either lose all or nothing. There was no in between.  
  
“EREN NOW!” Levi’s voice broke and Eren shoved his hand in his mouth, feeling the pinpricks of pain from Levi’s maneuver gear as he transformed. They would ride in together. Together for their final battle as squads swarmed around them and took to the trees and half destroyed buildings outside Wall Maria. Together with Levi’s hand comfortingly against the heated skin of his jaw. Together with united hearts and minds and goals.

To survive.

To be together.

Not just in battle but in life. 

It was the goal of all those who fought together with them, who saw Humanity’s Hope and Humanity’s Greatest Soldier charge into the fray with the wings of freedom at their backs-- the spread of shadow and light bright against the oceanic storm glistening like a beacon from the shoulder of a titan. The rage of all those who had been lost fueling their actions.

All seemed silent in the moments before Eren and Levi met the head of the first wave except for the cracking of Levi’s cloak in the sharp air. 

But for Eren, in the silence of that moment, there was a prayer in the air. Hanging on his own lips in the hot depths of his titan body. The same prayer that graced the lips of his lover perched on his shoulder. The prayer that crossed all their tongues that day.

_We will survive._

The silence ended abruptly as Eren parted the crowd of shifters and titans, those he could control he turned on their fellows; those he couldn’t his fearless protectors destroyed with all their might. Blood spilled from both sides, crashing crimson against the falling clumps of snow, colliding like bullets in midair and ricocheting into each other like a mad scramble for dominance. 

The purity of untouched snow against the burning saturation of blood spilled in valor.

The battle wore on longer than Eren dared to conceive as they moved towards hope-- pressing ever forward under Armin and Jean’s leadership. With Erwin’s troops sweeping the field behind and around them. It was absolute _chaos_ and Eren could see the delight in Levi’s eyes with each sweep of his blade, glinting with fury and calculated maneuvers that always _always_ led him back to Eren. Eren was his home base. His rock in the storm. When he began to stray he would find him again in the din, gliding together with Mikasa and Jean and Sasha and Connie-- and each time Eren became overwhelmed...

There they were.

There was Armin with the rage of a thousand deaths on his face, there was Historia; a goddess in the snow, there were the shadows of fluttering wings that whispered against his skin and fueled his fire with each pass. With each defensive maneuver they made with Eren as their center he strove forward, ever moving according to each order from his companions. 

He wished, at this moment, that he could have told them everything he was feeling: pride and hope and joy and anger and then--  
  
“SASHA!” She whirled in the air, barely able to keep her balance as her boyfriend shoved her clear of a titan that neared them.  
  
Where had it come from?  
  
“CONNIE!” She screamed, throwing herself against Eren’s fingers as he moved, grabbing the titan by the skull and crushing it with a roar.  
  
“NOT NOW!” Levi’s foot connected with his head. “MAKE YOUR CONT--” Levi’s voice died in his throat and Eren turned as Jean’s voice cut the air.  
  
“Jean!” Armin’s blades flashed, Sasha’s weak knees carrying her just as quickly away from Eren and towards the titan that had caught Jean between its teeth.  
  
“GET HIM! WE CAN’T LOSE ANOTHER COMMANDER!” Levi’s voice sounded panicked, they were losing ground. After all they had gained… two members in just a few seconds. Even as Eren caught the throat of the titan who had Jean Levi knew… they were now down two squad members.

Eren couldn’t stop the pained roar that ripped from his throat as Armin cut Jean free, pulling his body and gliding towards Eren for safety. For one horrifying second Eren thought Jean might die. That within a matter of a few seconds they would be without a Commander for a second time, even with Erwin close by and fighting… to have Jean die--  
  
“He’s ALIVE!” Armin’s broken voice called, but even Armin will all his calculating intelligence couldn’t hide the blood pouring from his lover’s body. “I’M TAKING HIM BACK!”  
  
“NO!” Levi swept Jean under his arm. “I’m faster. Eren! Go!” Levi gestured. “Go ON!” The fear that flashed in the shifter’s eyes must have passed to him. “GOD DAMN IT EREN JAEGER DON’T YOU DISOBEY ME!” He snarled.

And there it was again.

The silent moment that passed between them. All the things they had done and said and thought. Pleasured moments that had rendered them speechless, tender moments that spoke of burning emotions and building trust, moments where anger passed between them and regrets were spoken. Everything that meant anything to their lives.

It was less than a glance, a flash of eyes meeting eyes, but it meant everything.

_The only thing we are allowed to do is to believe that we won't regret the choice we made._

Eren’s heart ached, straining against his ribcage as Levi crouched and jumped back towards the convoy, and for half a second it seemed as though Eren might follow… instead he turned his head, turned his eyes forward and to his mission.

_I didn’t get to say goodbye._

He’d spent hours looking for Levi that morning, passing between horses and riders and carts looking desperately for his lover among the bodies. He wanted his moment with him, the moment all the others had in the heart pounding anticipation of what promised to be the _final_ expedition.

He found him speaking softly with Erwin and Jean, saw the flicker of a smile pass over his lips. A smile reserved only for Eren. He was the calm in the storm, Eren’s solidarity at a time when turmoil was his lifestyle.

_I didn’t get to kiss him farewell._

He reached the edge of the cliff, bloodied and healing with his friends around him, and as he looked around at the battle still raging below them… at a battle he would be ending shortly… he saw only humanity struggling for survival against monsters they were desperately trying to save. Creatures who had no control, creatures who knew no ends and no means… only destruction. 

They were humans as well, bodies contorted and destroyed, and when they awoke from this stupor… they would find that the world they had known had been lost. That everything they knew and loved had been taken from them just as Eren had.

 

* * *

 

Levi panted harshly in the cold air, fighting tirelessly to reach the titan whose form he knew so well, desperate to reach him… to help him in any way he could. Regret wasn’t a word he usually used but at this moment…

_I wanted to tell you I loved you more than anything._

Levi struggled forward, soaked in Jean’s blood and shivering violently as he tore through titan after titan. His thoughts were on Eren. On reaching Eren. On not having regrets.

On not dying without saying it. He didn’t want to regret sending Eren away. He didn’t want to regret making a choice he knew he had to make.  
  
In the thickest of the battlefield Levi weaved between carcasses and trees, warmed by the steam, managing to narrowly miss the swipe of a hand.  
  
 _Eren._ He saw him take a hit, watched his team take the titan down. Working seamlessly together.

Pride filled his chest as he landed on a branch, pausing only a moment to take in the work he’d done… that he’d formed a seamless team around a titan that moved without hesitation and fought fearlessly to the end. That Eren had grown so much under his care into someone who could make his own decisions… someone who had finally learned to see the beauty in the grey of the world.

Someone he could love as his equal. Could trust with his life.

_As soon as I have you in my arms again… I’ll tell you..._

He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the strike that sent him to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Triumph came swiftly.

But for Eren; triumph meant the haunting realization that the battlefield below was now a graveyard. A poignant reminder of all they had lost and gained. And all they still had to recover. And as Eren walked his squad back towards the convoy, as Scouting Legion and Garrison alike raised the former titans to their feet… as they checked the wounded and cried for their squadmates’ lives… Armin soared towards the carts, meeting one and dropping down by Jean’s side-- and Eren’s heart soared as their hands clasped together, as Armin rested his head against Jean’s chest… as their prayers came true.

Others were not so lucky, Sasha was quiet in Mikasa’s arms, no tears spoiled the muck on her skin but her wide eyes were liquid. She had watched her beloved die. As so many before had. And all Eren could do was thank whatever being existed above them that he had been given Humanity’s Strongest.

That he could trust Levi. That they would, now that their war had ended, live together and be together and say all the things they pressed into sweat soaked skin in the cool, dark of the night. They would reach the ocean he could see at the edges of his vision.  
  
It was a relief when Mikasa cut him free, when he could sprint towards the convoy, towards the friends and, now, family. But the dark look on Hanji’s face when he reached her, the way Moblit caught his shoulder when he neared the cart… the shadows about Erwin’s eyes as he looked away…  
  
“What happened?!” Eren wasn’t sure who had screamed. Maybe it was him as he threw himself onto the wooden planks that groaned beneath his weight.  
  
“You’re so noisy,” Levi’s voice was weak against the bandages, face scraped and bruised as Eren stared down at him with fury and pain evident on his face.  
  
“What the-- what happened to you?” But Eren didn’t need and answer, hands pressing desperately at the blood seeping from his captain’s body.  
  
“We’ve tried to stop the bleeding, Eren, there’s nothing we can do…” Hanji grabbed for him, trying to pull him away.  
  
“Don’t fucking sit here, go help,” blood bubbled at Levi’s lips. “Sometimes… the clock just stops… you know?” There was a wheeze to his words and Eren bowed his head, clutching Levi’s hand in his despite his harsh laugh.  
  
“You can’t… you can’t die… not like this! You promised! We’re going to go see the world! Be together! Who am I without you!?” Eren’s tears burned his eyes. “What am I without you!? How will they convince--how will I be allowed t-to--” he pressed his words to the scabbed knuckles of his captain’s hands. “W-We’re so close…”  
  
“We’ll meet again in the next life,” the words sparked something in the shifter and Eren drew away. “Eren…” there was a touch of warning as Levi’s eyes began to fade. “There’s something I…”  
  
“No!” Eren’s voice knotted around the burn in his throat. “NO!” He moved and Moblit threw Hanji and Erwin back as the shifter sank his teeth into his hand.

Keep Levi alive.  
  
That was the only inane thought that could pass through his head as he scooped Levi into his hand. The only thing he could use for control as he made for the ocean. Anything. Anything at all that would keep him alive. He would show him the ocean. He would force him to stay alive. He would show him all the things to live for.  
  
Or he would force him to end both of them.  
  
“You just can’t let me die in peace, can you brat?” Levi’s voice made Eren’s heart soar. Even as Levi dragged himself up his arm, grappling to his shoulder with what little strength he had. “God damn it… you fucking selfish piece of shit…” He dug his blades in, limbs trembling under the weight of his wounds. “Promise me, Eren, that you’ll find me again.”

“But--” He saw beams of light breaking through into the darkness of his titan shell as his feet sank heavily into the sand. As water rushed around the massive appendages of his titan form.

“No buts. Promise me. Tell me right now,” Eren could feel him peeling the titan flesh back from his tired body, dragging him onto the sand, the sand he’d always wanted to see, could feel the warm rush of blood from Levi’s body with each struggling movement.

“I can’t… what if…”

“This can’t be the end,” his Captain’s voice broke as he pulled Eren into a one armed hug, cradling the back of his neck and sliding his fingers into his hair. “Promise me Eren, you said… you said we wouldn’t need to know who we were… because we wouldn’t be apart...” his voice was harsh and broken again Eren’s ear as the cold steel of Levi’s blade pressed against his spine.

“I’ll find you…” He wrapped his arms around him, the sounds of the ocean washing up around them.

“Because I… am nothing without you…” Levi choked out, the taste of blood bitter in his mouth.

“I love you,” Eren couldn’t even feel the cold bite of saltwater anymore, the warmth of his Captain’s body against his… he couldn’t feel his heartbeat fading or the blade sliding between his vertebrae.

He couldn’t hear his captain’s final words.

_“I love you.”_

 

* * *

 

“Eren,” Levi’s voice soothed him as he cried against the skin of his chest in his sleep. At some point Levi had bundled him up in his arms, rocking him gently. “Eren wake up it’s only a dream…” He kissed his forehead, his eyelids, his lips. All he wanted was for Eren to wake. To realize it was over now. That he was there.  
  
“Levi?” His eyes snapped open, for a moment he didn’t seem to know where he was; that he was wrapped up in the arms of his lover. For a moment he thought he was back on the battlefield of a war long forgotten. “Levi! I shouldn’t have left! I should have seen you back! We could have gone together!”  
  
“We did…” Levi whispered against his ear. “We did go together… take a deep breath…” he nuzzled his neck. “We were together until the end…”  
  
The room fell quiet again except for Eren’s quiet crying as he calmed, lulled by Levi’s movements. He wished he could take it away. This was never what he wanted, to cause Eren pain. He prayed that he could take it all back and that he would never have met him in this life… that Eren wouldn’t be crying in his arms about a death that had happened millennia before.

Yet he wouldn’t have it any other way.

They had promised years before that they would be together and here they were, together finally on equal ground.

“Levi…” he whispered against his skin.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Why do we remember all this stuff? Why is it… why does it hurt like this?”

Cold realization burrowed deep into Levi’s gut, blood ice in his veins. What kind of question was that?  _Why_? He looked down at turquoise eyes that haunted him through centuries of memories. At a tearstained face that now sought a different answer entirely.

_Why?_

Why did they remember all these things? What was the purpose they served? Was it leading them towards something? If it was just them… why did so many others remember?

Levi thought he knew the answer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This ends this part of the storyline~ I hope you've enjoyed the story this far! We're about to have a bunch more questions answered~
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome
> 
> chapter title from "Pompeii" by Bastille.


	19. Won't let you go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some fluffy Eren and Levi, the beginning of a new mystery, and baby!eren still believing in Santa Clause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Damn that was an intense couple of chapters! Here's some fluffy stuff and the start to our next and FINAL arc!
> 
> ALSO! I wanted to thank you guys so much for the turn out for this story! It makes me really happy to know I can make YOU happy! I read every single on of your replies (sometimes out loud) and it just fills my days with joy. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: the rhythm of a metronome, fic: metronome

Levi could remember the first time Eren had ever asked him _why_ they remembered. The thought never seemed to cross his mind even when he was in his ‘but why’ stage of life; somehow that was just the way it was and he didn’t bother to question it.

He had been six. Levi had been 18 and freshly back from his first semester of college.

“Cap’n!” Eren was practically bouncing off the glass of the storm door as Levi strode up the walk, flailing his sleeves around as Levi set him free. “Leviii~” he threw himself into his arms, sleeves flapping against the older boy’s back. “I wore it!” He was dressed in jeans, not that you’d be able to tell for the giant red sweater plastered with white nordic patterns and reindeer.  
  
“Well damn it’s a little big Eren I can’t even see your knees,” Levi chuckled as Eren buried his cold nose in the collar of his shirt. “Are you ready to go?”  
  
“Thank you for doing this, Levi,” Carla said, pushing the storm door open. “You really don’t have to I’m sure you had a long drive.”  
  
“Nah it’s okay, the brat wouldn’t shut up about it anyway,” Levi smiled.  
  
“Are we gonna go! Levi!”  
  
“Eren come here first,” Carla caught his sleeves and started to roll them up around his hands. “I wish you’d wait until you grew into this to wear it…”  
  
“I love it! Levi gave it to me! And I love Levi the most!” Eren proclaimed, eliciting a chuckle from his mother.  
  
“Well I’m sure he loves you just as much,” she swat his bottom to send him off towards his favorite friend. “I’ll see you boys later, are you staying tonight, Levi?”  
  
“Sure,” he nodded. “Thanks Mrs. Jaeger,” he caught Eren up in his arms and walked off towards his car.  
  
“Where are we going?” Eren let Levi buckle him in, bouncing in the front seat.  
  
“To the country, it’s going to be a long drive are you ready for that?” Levi asked. “Did you drink anything before you left?”  
  
“Nope! Mom said I’d have to pee!”  
  
“Well she’s right and I’m not going to stop and let you,” Levi chided softly as he slid into the car. “How have you been, bright eyes?”  
  
“Not any different than last night!” Eren proclaimed, kicking his legs as he stretched his arm out, reaching for Levi’s hand.  
  
“What you wanna hold hands now?” Levi obliged, curling his fingers around Eren’s smaller hand.  
  
“I missed you… I didn’t get to hold your hand for a long time!” Eren replied adoringly. “I made a new friend! His name is Armin and he’s really cool! He has yellow hair and big blue eyes. My parents are thinking about getting me a little sibling!”  
  
“Armin, huh?” Levi asked absently. “How’s school been?”  
  
“Good! I had a nightmare during naptime, though, and when I told the teacher she called my parents…” Eren grumbled.  
  
“Really? That’s really strange. Some people just don’t understand us, huh?” He squeezed Eren’s hand gently.  
  
“I missed you, Levi,” he whispered and Levi shot a glance over, feeling his heart melt at the pleading teal eyes that searched his face for answers.  
  
“I missed you too, Eren,” Levi brought his hand to his mouth to press his lips against Eren’s soft knuckles.

“Nobody gets it the way you do,” Eren said softly.  
  
“So you say.”  
  
“Do you remember everything I do?” Eren’s eyes searched his face. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you that… I think I’m remembering more. Ma says I’ve been talking in a language she doesn’t understand and… sleepwalking…” Fear pulled at Levi’s heart like a bowstring, shuddering infinitely. “But since she’s always there when we talk on the phone…”  
  
“No it’s okay, I understand,” Levi stared at the road ahead, bittersweet bubbles rising in his stomach. What should he do?  
  
 _Am I really willing to give him up? He can’t remember. I can’t let him remember._  

“Cap’n?”  
  
“Yeah, bright eyes?”  
  
“Why do we remember all this stuff?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Why do we… remember? Who would want to?” Eren whispered. “It’s all so awful… why… why do we have to remember this stuff?” He buried his face in his hands, small shoulders shaking. “A-All the p-pain…”  
  
 _That_ was the deciding factor.  
  
“Eren, Eren--” Levi reached over and caught his hand in his hair, trying to calm him down as best he could. Once again he was across a gulf, watching Eren sob from miles away and unable to calm him. He didn’t deserve this. Eren didn’t deserve to feel this way, to be a child with such a heavy burden of memories from centuries past. And it was Levi’s fault. “Hey look we’re almost there, we’re going to get the tree right?”  
  
Eren lifted his damp face from his hands, still hiccupping, still tense beneath Levi’s hand. For a moment his eyes were haunted, empty and emotionless regardless of the tears that gathered on his lashes, a terrifying reminder of the Eren he had seen only in his dreams. And even then… those moments were brief and filled with terror. However, this time it passed, swallowed whole by joy that billowed out into those teal irises, dark lashes blown wide as he saw the sign-- made the measurement in his head-- and discovered just how close they were.  
  
“We’re gonna lay under the branches right? It always smells so nice underneath!” Eren laughed and for the moment, finally, the period of remembrance was gone. Eren was returned to Levi unharmed and smiling. Released from the jaws of memory.  
  
“Yeah we’re going to string up Christmas lights and I’m going to tie you up in tinsel so you can’t break the angel like last year,” Levi slowed in the snow-laden parking lot, parking in the closest thing he could find that resembled a parking space.  
  
“That was an accident!” Eren protested, but his laughter hung in the air like sparkling lights; bursting and breaking and crashing into each fresh wave of glistening happiness that built and built until Levi’s world was white and golden and _Eren_.

* * *

A light that now glowed in the snow’s reflection against Eren’s bare skin as he asked a question that echoed over the years, washing over Levi and raking his body with the cold claws of fear. _Why_ was the question that he’d spent hours upon decades of time thinking about. _Why_ did they need to remember any of these things?

“Levi? I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have asked something so stupid… it isn’t as if you know why,” Eren murmured.  
  
“No I can’t know for sure, not really,” Levi shook his head. “Even then, now isn’t the time to talk about those things…” He leaned forward and kissed his _lover._ Now that thought felt good, fingers curling through the soft, honeyed locks he knew so well. “Eren…”  
  
“I like the way you say my name,” Eren murmured, cradling his head in his hands. “Please don’t… ever leave me…” He pressed their mouths together once more, tasting his own tears on his tongue.  
  
“Never,” Levi swore. “I’ll never leave you. Never, ever again.” Pain filled his chest until it was hard to breathe, until he was drowning himself in Eren’s kisses and Eren’s hands and Eren’s _love_. Unspoken though it was. _Soon he’ll say it._

As if Levi really needed to hear the words to know that he was the person Eren wanted more than anything.

For the first time Levi _wasn’t_ chasing after Eren as he ran towards some unforeseeable goal. He _was_ the goal.

He didn’t have to run anymore. All he had to do was wait.

_I love you so much, Eren._

They fell asleep, finally at rest, in each other’s arms and for a brief moment the beat stopped. The ceaseless movement of a ticking clock swung once, twice, and slowed-- too laden to continue. 

* * *

He remembered his nineteenth birthday: Eren leaping onto his bed and jumping around with breathless excitement. Words like ‘Santa’ and ‘cookies’ spilled from his mouth until Levi was forced to throw him down on the bed and smother him with his body until the wriggling figure calmed, nuzzling a cold nose into his neck. 

“What time is it?” He buried his face in Eren’s soft hair, closing his eyes against the gray daylight filtering in through the blinds.  
  
“Eight!” Eren offered, voice muffled in the collar of Levi’s shirt.  
  
“Hmm…” his chest ached, he wasn’t sure it had ever stopped aching, at least not since they had brought the tree back. And here, wrapped up in the tiny arms of his best friend, his resolve began to waver.

 _I can’t stay here._ His shoulders shook. _I’ve known that._ He’d known since the Halloween a year before. Since the night he realized that he would one day be forced to sacrifice Eren to keep him safe… but he had hoped it wouldn’t be this soon.  
  
 _I don’t want to let you go, Eren._ He cradled the boy’s head in his hand, burning the scent of his hair into his memory, the way his laugh sounded against his ear. _I want to watch you grow up and be here with you. I want to be the person you come to and the person you care for and the person you can always rely on…_

“Levi?” Eren wriggled his way up to catch his face in his hands. “I love you!”  
  
 _I want to wake up to your face every day and hear you tell me you love me…_ He rested his forehead against the fragile sternum beneath him.  
  
“I love you too, idiot,” he murmured. “Don’t ever forget that, okay?”  
  
“How could I forget?” Eren giggled as Levi pulled his pajama top up.  
  
“Just in case… hey maybe you’ll hit your head too hard one day and you’ll forget everything… just remember I love you okay? Always and forever and don’t ever, _ever_ doubt it.”  
  
“I wouldn’t doubt y-- AAH!” He screamed with laughter as Levi blew a raspberry on his belly, distracting both of them from the solemnity of the moment. He didn’t want either of them to remember their last days together as anything less than joyful.

Because on the day he said goodbye, that fateful day in January when he kissed him and held Eren so close it nearly broke him, he meant it. And he never looked back.

At least not until _he_ arrived.

“You’re Levi, right?” The voice was more than familiar, smooth and educated, echoing somewhere deep in some forgotten memory that Levi fought down with all his might.  
  
“Yeah what’s it to you?” Levi hazarded a look up.  
  
“My name is Erwin Smith,” widening eyes filled with trickling understanding lifted back to the handsome face above him.  
  
“Yeah… I know it is.”  
  
He had thought that was his last goodbye. That he would never see Eren again. That he would never reach out and touch the memories he pushed back from his heart. 

Until _Erwin._  

* * *

The movement of a body against his was what drew Eren from his dreams that morning, the motion soft and undulating as Levi adjusted his legs and pressed his face against Eren’s breastbone. Eren’s heart fluttered against his chest as he caught his fingers through Levi’s messy locks, realizing quite suddenly that this was _happening_ , body tingling when the thought struck him. Levi was really here, wrapped up in his arms, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

 _He’s not going anywhere._ Eren thought in a near panic, winding himself around his lover like ivy and pressing them together.  
  
“Eren,” Levi’s voice sounded empty in the hollow of Eren’s arms and he released his grip just slightly.  
  
“Good morning,” Eren buried his face against Levi’s, basking in the sleepy look Levi gave him from hooded blue eyes just before a smile pulled at his lips. “ _Good morning,_ ” he said it again with so much joy. He couldn’t control the way his hands caught Levi’s head or the way happiness billowed out of him and mingled with the bubbles of remaining confusion. He still had so many questions but… understanding everything made the world a brighter place.  
  
“Jesus it’s good to wake up to you,” Levi wanted to add _again_ but somehow that would have seemed insincere.  
  
“I think they’re serving breakfast downstairs,” Eren said against his mouth.  
  
“Hmmm I’m starving,” Levi chuckled. “Take a shower and we’ll go down okay?”  
  
“Okay!” Eren threw the blankets off and started for the washroom, giving Levi the full treatment of his body in the morning light. “Are you going to come?” He smiled slyly, catching the door frame.  
  
“If you get the water hot,” Levi sat up, picking up his phone from where it had been tossed to the ground.  
  
“Oh we’ll make the water hot,” Eren smirked.  
  
“Walked into that one…” Levi’s voice became distracted. “I’ll join you in a minute, how’s that? Get all the sweat off you before I come in,” he looked up at him. For a moment he considered ignoring his responsibilities. Eren’s form in the backlight of the bathroom was delectable. Muscular thighs and carved hips and rounded biceps-- how could anyone resist him? He was a platter of muscles to be bit and sucked and kissed until he was a writhing mess… a body to be worshipped until he was breathless and screaming.  
  
“If you say so~” Eren seemed to have noticed his gaze, tilting his hips as he turned and Levi wasn’t about to deny himself the sight of Eren Jaeger’s ass.  
  
 _I’ll deal with this later._ He threw the phone down and dove after him, crushing his mouth to Eren’s as he turned to meet him.

 **Erwin Smith** : Don’t make me wait, Levi

But Levi wasn't about to give up his one chance. Not to Erwin Smith. Not to anyone. His once chance for happiness with Eren Jaeger. A chance he thought he'd given up.

Not now. Not ever.

He wouldn't give him up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the shit chapter. it'll be better next time.


	20. Buy your silence.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren loves his sister. Armin is suspicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so we've finally begun the second arc of this story! We're entering the final ten chapters! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: the rhythm of a metronome

That morning was a dream for Eren, sitting at the breakfast table with his friends and talking about _the old days_ that were nothing more than memories now. A million lifetimes away but still fond and familiar.  
  
“I remember nobody wanted to bunk with Eren so Armin had to do it!” Connie laughed.  
  
“ _Me?_ Connie you snored like a hog! Jean considered putting plugs in your face so the rest of us could sleep!” Eren protested.

“ _Wax_ we were going to pour _wax_ in his face,” Jean corrected.  
  
“Yeah and then he came and slept with us,” Mikasa looked irritated. “Sasha let him!”  
  
“Well he looked so sad!” Sasha giggled into her breakfast, hand laced atop the table with his.  
  
“We used to try to predict the weather! B--” Eren paused for a moment, all eyes on him. “Bertholdt always ended up in Reiner’s bed one way or another, he was always so patient.”  
  
“Awe! Bertholdt was so sweet! Quiet and shy, it’s sad how they ended up,” Sasha hummed.  
  
Levi watched them all from his position near the head of the table, relaxed over a cup of coffee as Eren’s hand caressed his knee beneath the tablecloth, thumb brushing against the inside of this thigh. It was a tender motion, familiar and comforting, and it softened his brows against the hard lines of his eyes as he cast them to Eren’s face.  
  
“Hey,” Eren murmured quietly, teal gaze adoring.

“How’s breakfast?” The urge to kiss him overwhelmed Levi’s senses, fingers nearly slipping on his cup.   
  
“Great now that you’re here,” Eren nearly made him blush.  
  
“Jesus you’re a sap,” Levi dismissed, looking away.  
  
No one at the table missed Eren’s triumphant grin, but it sank quickly when Levi’s phone rang, “Levi…”  
  
“It’s fine, just a business call, I’ll take care of it,” Levi rose from the table. “Continue as if I were still here,” he pulled out his phone and walked off towards a side hallway.

“So what’s going on, Eren?” Armin asked softly. “Between the two of you?”  
  
“I don’t really know right now…” Eren lowered his face.   
  
“But you’re not mad at each other anymore?” Armin mused.  
  
“No… I certainly don’t think so…” Eren grinned sheepishly.

“Good,” Mikasa’s relief was apparent as she reached over and caught his hand. “I’m glad you’re okay, Eren.”  
  
“Yeah you… don’t have to worry about me being okay… I think it’s all over now,” he looked up and over towards where Levi had vanished to-- wondering if he was reassuring her or himself.

 

* * *

 

The next few weeks flew by in a rush of happiness and a return to end-of-the-year madness. Eren drowned himself in research, hiding in his labs whenever he could to make up for the time lost during his days searching for lost memories. Levi spent most nights with him, either bringing dinner or just sitting at the end of the couch to read flashcards and reward his lover with intermittent kisses.

Thanksgiving brought a reprieve... and Mikasa on Eren’s doorstep.  
  
“I wanted to help you,” Mikasa smiled, bundled up against the cold.   
  
“Help?” Eren’s eyes brightened and allowed her in, catching her bag over his shoulder as she passed. “Sounds great, I was just about to rub the turkey down and put it in.”  
  
“Where’s Levi?” Mikasa glanced around. _This place is pretty clean._ She smoothed her hand over the kitchen table laden with half finished beginnings to a Thanksgiving feast. _He’s been here recently at least._  
  
“He’s finishing up some stuff for work, he’s leaving next week for Europe I guess,” Eren didn’t seem pleased.  
  
“Europe? What for?” Mikasa peeled off her layers and casting them over the back of a lounge chair.   
  
“I dunno just some stuff,” he shrugged. “How are you?” He caught his arm around her neck. “Ready for Thanksgiving football?”  
  
“As if we’re even going to watch it,” she rolled her eyes. “Probably end up playing Cards against Humanity and drinking all night like last time.”  
  
“Haha Armin threw up! That was the best night!”  
  
“He didn’t think so, we’re awful people,” she pulled at his ear. “Eren…” her face sank and she stilled in the entry to the kitchen. “I’m really glad you’re happy.”  
  
“But you’re not,” he checked the oven. “Right?”  
  
“I am! I’m really happy… just confused maybe?” She didn’t think now was the right time to bring this up, to think about ruining Eren’s happy holiday with the people he loved… but she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Eren was her big brother, he was supposed to be the person she could lean on, right? At least that’s what he’d always told her, even when it was she that attempted to protect him. He’d always said he’d be there. And he always was. Eren was Mikasa’s guiding light, her rock in a storm that held her above the choking waves and gave her something to believe in.

She wondered if he knew he’d been that way for her in the past as well. The person that held her up and gave her life again. Nothing that dramatic had happened in this lifetime, and she prayed it never would, but he’d backed her up in more than just a few fights. He’d kept an eye on her at the beginning of college and let her party as she saw fit, always there to reign her in, they looked out for each other. They understood each other. 

She hadn’t noticed the tears dripping down her face until Eren’s arms were around her, until she was pressed into the warm, firm muscle of his chest. Until she was enveloped by security and held close. Here, in Eren’s arms, everything was familiar and safe.  
  
“I-I’ve been so alone…” she broke, burying her face into his sternum. “Eren I’ve missed you so much!”  
  
“Mikasa?” He pressed his face into her hair, adjusting to hold her more tightly. “Mikasa it’s okay I’m right here.”  
  
“I was so lonely then and… now I’m lonely again! Why am I-- why am I the only one without someone?” She clung to him, her rock in the storm, terrified of being swept away by age old emotions.

“I wish I could answer that, Mikasa,” Eren whispered. “I don’t know… back then you were too busy fighting for you life I think?”  
  
“But you! You and Armin! You both had someone! A-Armin and Jean died together and I… I was just alone. J-just alone, Eren,” she whispered. “I knew we’d have to give you the antidote and after what it did…”  
  
“You can’t dwell on that,” Eren stroked her hair, glancing up to see Levi watching them from the doorway, face soft. “You can’t worry about that. I was going to die anyway…” He turned his face back to her.  
  
“You d-died without saying goodbye! You died then and left me alone and here I am again _alone_ , and I don’t know what to do… I feel so selfish…”  
  
“Mikasa asking for help isn’t selfish,” he murmured. “I love you, right? I love you and Armin and Levi and even _Jean_ very much okay? And I’d drop everything in a heartbeat to help you, you know that?”  
  
“I know, Eren, that’s why I… that’s why I just… I didn’t mean to ruin your holiday.”  
  
“You haven’t ruined anything!” Eren smiled, kissing the crown of her head. “If you’re lonely I’m not going to let you be lonely anymore! I’ll just have to carry you around the house and we’ll just be one person for the day.”  
  
“What?” She blinked as his arms vanished from around her. “Eren!” She laughed as she found him crouched on the ground at her feet.  
  
“Come on, climb up,” he rolled his shoulders. “Like when we were kids.”  
  
“Eren you’re not going to piggyback me!”  
  
“Climb on before I knock you over!” He threatened, earning a laugh through her tears.  
  
“You’re so stupid,” she wrapped her arms around his neck and hooked her legs around his waist. “Okay,” she nestled her nose behind his ear, taking in a breath of her brother’s familiar scent. His shampoo, his cologne, his detergent. All of it mingled together with the warmth of his tan skin, pushing tears of happiness out to wash away those of sadness.

Maybe she was wrong. Eren was the storm in the metaphor and the rock was her sadness.

“I brought pie,” Levi offered finally once Eren was standing comfortably.   
  
“Pie!” Eren hustled over to him, Mikasa’s laughter hot against his ear. “In exchange for the pie you will receive a kiss.”  
  
“I was hoping for some turkey but sure,” Levi handed the pie to Mikasa’s outstretched hand.

Eren was the warm spring rain that washed away the last cold remnants of winter. The rain that cleared from the sky to leave the heat of the sun. He was the thunder rolling in the air. The flash of lightening to brighten the path for the weary in the oceans of humanity.

“No turkey for you!” Mikasa chided as Eren walked back to the kitchen. “Only scraps!”  
  
“Well shit I guess I’ll have to _take my pie back_ ,” he followed determinedly and Eren ran around the table as Mikasa laughed, clinging to his neck.

“Eren no!” Her scream was broken with giggles as he headed for the couch, hurrying away from Levi.   
  
“Hold onto the pie!” Eren told her. “Don’t let him have it!”  
  
“What have we walked into?” Armin asked, pushing the door open and pulling his jacket off.   
  
“A mad house,” Levi slowed, not bothering to chase them any longer. “They stole my pie.”  
  
“Quick Armin! Take it!” Armin yelped against Eren’s charge towards him, laughing while Levi intercepted it, snatching his dessert away and whirling out of the line of fire.   
  
“No!” Mikasa redirected her brother, turning his head. “There he goes!”  
  
“Where’s Jean, Armin?” Eren called over his shoulder, hurrying off after Mikasa’s designated target.  
  
“He’s with family for the holidays,” Armin smiled. “His parents and Marco’s parents are all together.”  
  
Eren’s face sank just slightly, slowing in his run, glancing to Levi. _I didn’t think about that. It’s only been a short while since Marco died. Mikasa isn’t the only lonely one._  
  
“What about your dad, Eren?” Armin asked in return.  
  
“Dad sent us an email from Switzerland, I dunno what he’s doing there but he seems to be happy!” A wrinkle appeared between Eren’s brows, eyes watching Levi still in the kitchen at the mention of Eren’s father.   
  
“Well that’s good he’s enjoying himself, after your mother died he wasn’t feeling well right?”  
  
“Yeah he…” Eren almost couldn’t answer Armin’s question. “He didn’t do so well for a few years but he’s okay now.”  
  
“Are you okay?” Mikasa nestled her chin on his shoulder, bumping their cheeks together.  
  
“Yeah… Yeah I really am!” A grin that could have lit a star broke through his face. “This is… this is the happiest I’ve been in a really long time. Are we going to get a Christmas tree again?”  
  
“You don’t mean to bring a tree into your apartment do you? I have a hard enough time cleaning up after you as it is,” Levi chided. “Weren’t you cooking?”  
  
“Oh shit!”  
  
“Onward Eren!” Mikasa pointed to the kitchen. “Charge!”  
  
Armin, ever perceptive, hadn’t missed a single cue.

 

* * *

 

“That is not fair!” Mikasa slapped her brother in the chest, punishing him for laughing at her character’s death. “You can’t just shoot me with a rocket!”  
  
“Why not!?” Eren cast his arms around the back of the couch. “You’d lose even if I couldn’t use a vehicle!”  
  
She wiggled her feet, legs cast over his lap and dropped her head back in petulance, “It’s not fair! I lose every time because you won’t follow the rules!”  
  
“I do what I want!”

  
“They’re really enjoying themselves, huh?” Armin asked, helping Levi clean the kitchen.  
  
“It’s good, they needed to spend time together,” Levi replied. “Is there something you want, Armin? It feels like every once in a while you corner me and force me to talk.”  
  
“I just wanted to know how you were feeling about being with Eren?”  
  
“I feel fine. He’s happy and that’s what’s important,” the dishes clinking distracted him from Eren’s laughter and Levi cursed them.  
  
“Are you sure that’s all that’s important? Certainly you should be happy as well,” Armin wondered.  
  
“Of course I’m happy with Eren, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”  
  
“I just wonder what you had to do to get here… and if that’s the reason why you’re bothered?” Armin arched an eyebrow.  
  
Levi lifted his head, lip curling for the briefest of seconds, “Just what are you getting at?”  
  
“What did you do all those years ago? Why did you cut him off the way you did? He never talked about you to me once you were gone.”  
  
“He probably forgot about me, it happens sometimes,” Levi muttered.  
  
“So why did you say you didn’t remember any of us?”  
  
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”  
  
“Did you explain it to Eren at least?” The next time Levi looked Armin was closer than he was before, blue eyes intense. “We’ve spoken before… I thought I saw recognition in your eyes… were you lying?”  
  
“No I forgot about all this. I pushed it away.”  
  
“Yet you were with Erwin?” That struck fear into Levi’s heart.  
  
“How did you--?”  
  
“You honestly think Eren doesn’t tell me everything? He’s one of the most honest people I know, he talks before he thinks and that led me here: how did you not have any memories if you were around people who are like us? When I _know_ you remembered.”  
  
Levi grit his teeth, baring them instinctively, “You really want to go down this road? Ruin your friends’ holiday?”  
  
“I want Eren to have the truth, not a lie.”  
  
“Isn’t he happier with a lie?” Levi glanced over to where Eren and Mikasa were now wrestling for the remote.   
  
“Haven’t you fallen into that trap before?”  
  
The movement of Levi’s jaw was almost feral, a twitch of muscle and bone that Armin had only seen once before. It was dangerous to push him.

_He’s not my Captain anymore._

Armin felt himself falling into the trap of his memories, forgetting that Levi was just a normal person like him. That this time there wasn’t an ocean of ranks and training between them. He scowled, taking a step closer.  
  
“Tell me are you really willing to hurt Eren like that?”  
  
“What Eren doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Levi replied calmly. “What do you think I was up to anyway?”  
  
“I looked into your work, I wanted to know how you found all those people.”  
  
Fear began to trickle down and catch on each hair on the back of his neck, sliding between his shoulderblades and shuddering his shoulders.   
  
“Please tell Eren,” Armin murmured. “That’s all I want.”  
  
“I’ll think about it. I have a business trip next week… I don’t want to leave while he’s upset.”  
  
“Do what you think is best; as long as it’s what’s best for Eren.” 

 _What’s best for everyone is if I keep quiet._ He curled his fingers around his phone.

 

* * *

 

“Thanks for coming to Thanksgiving, Levi,” Eren followed him into the hallway. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately…”

  
“It’s understandable, you’ve had school,” Levi caught his face in his hands. “We’ll spend some of your Christmas break together okay? Just us.”  
  
“Yeah, sounds great,” Eren pressed their foreheads together. He couldn’t believe his luck, that after everything that had happened here he was with Levi in his arms and his heart floating in the clouds. “Levi I… always meant to tell you…”  
  
“Tell me what, Eren?” Levi lifted onto his toes to kiss him, sliding his arms around his neck.  
  
“How can I tell you--” He relented to his kisses, crushing their mouths together until they were breathless, lips slick and tongues tangled in the cool air of the hallway. “Levi.”  
  
“Just kiss me and shut up,” Levi didn’t want him to talk. No not yet. Not with Armin’s voice still fresh in his mind and Armin’s threats still sharp against his heart.   
  
“Levi please,” strong hands pulled their faces apart. “I said when I found the man from my dreams I… would tell him I loved him right?”  
  
 _Oh fuck._ Levi sank his teeth into his lip.  
  
“Well I… I couldn’t say it at first because I was too angry. You lied to me… and I know why now but…”  
  
“Eren please--”  
  
He caught Levi’s face to turn his gaze back, “Look at me.”  
  
It was like a car accident; you knew it was coming, you knew exactly what would happen. You could see every little detail in slow motion, watch every crack form on the windshield form, helpless to defend against it; hopeless to survive.

“I love you.”

Eren had been everything he'd ever wanted. Everything he'd ever chased. And he'd finally had Eren running back. But now... _What have I done?_

They were going to collide.


	21. Halfway across the world.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean and Eren talk. Levi hesitates. The beginning of Levi and Erwin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was late! It took me a while to figure out just how much information I wanted to include. It took me longer than usual because my CTS acted up, so this will be the last chapter of Met for a little while because I’m going to take a break. I had to have Windie type this author's note up for me because I can’t type right now. So please enjoy! 
> 
>  
> 
>  **tumblr:** thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
>  **tracking:** fic: metronome; fic: the rhythm of a metronome

He always preferred the company jet, somehow getting to sit in a comfortable leather chair at a desk was better than being crammed in like a sardine with other passengers. He couldn’t _imagine_ why as he looked out the window, pursing his lips in thought.

“You seem pensieve,” he swiveled his head at the sound of a voice, lifting his cheek from the heel of his hand.  
  
“I’m alright,” Levi replied, accepting a glass from the flight attendant. Erwin dropped his bag to the side and dropped his broad frame into the seat across from him.  
  
“I’m surprised you haven’t flown into a fit of rage, are you no longer angry?” Erwin’s eyes twinkled and Levi felt a resurgence of  ‘I need to gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon’ burst white hot in his chest.  
  
“You’re going to _make_ me angry if you’re not careful,” Levi shook his glass, praying the chinking ice would cover the sound of a headache beginning behind his eyes.

“I thought so; it all turned out alright, didn’t it?” Erwin smiled pleasantly. “You got what you wanted and I got what I wanted… for the most part.”  
  
Levi’s eyes flickered over to Erwin’s face, watching him sip at what amounted to bitter water with bubbles, wondering just what he was planning this time. He had some idea, they all had some vague idea of what Erwin’s entire plan was, even if it hadn’t begun to come together until the moment he realized he was being woven into Erwin’s plans-- the way he’d been promised would never happen. 

“Tell me, what did you get out of him?” Erwin’s impassive gaze found Levi and the slighter man’s face twitched.  
  
“I haven’t asked,” Levi looked out the window. “I don’t want to rush it, Erwin.”  
  
“You try my patience, protecting him is only going to--”  
  
“Look! We’re not on the edge of destruction again, we’re not people who have to struggle to survive.”  
  
“No… but we may be,” Erwin frowned in return. “You’re becoming crotchety in your old age… or did Eren say something to you?”  
  
“Eren said nothing,” Levi’s eyes flickered and he worried for a moment that Erwin might call his bluff. His fingers latched his seatbelt absently, watching every shift of the bigger man’s body, tension pulling at his shoulders.  
  
“Certainly,” Erwin stretched his long legs out before him, loosening the tie around his neck. “I don’t know why I’d think otherwise.”  
  
But the peculiar shine in Erwin’s blue eyes told Levi that there was more to be had of this conversation. More to discuss than he wished to bother with.

* * *

“Hey, you planning on leaving the labs any time soon?” Eren certainly wasn’t expecting the man he answered the door to, tilting his head.

“Oh shit sorry… how long have I been here?” Eren looked exhausted behind his glasses, rubbing at his eyes.  
  
“A couple days, since Levi left I think,” Jean’s brows knitted with concern.  
  
“Oh…” The heavy sigh he expelled was more than expected, slender fingers reaching up to fiddle with the ends of his hair. “I need a haircut…”  
  
“Maybe,” Jean agreed. “Come on you don’t need to hole yourself up in there,” he shook the bag gently.  
  
“What’re you doing here anyway?” Eren opened the door wider and let him into the lab.  
  
“I wanted to… talk to you…” Jean watched Eren drag himself across the lab, tidying up glassware and packing paperwork and a tablet into his bag.  
  
“So Armin sent you?”  
  
“No I came… on my own…”  
  
“Were you and Armin fighting over Thanksgiving?”  
  
“What?” Jean’s eyes widened, turning his face against Eren’s sharpened gaze. “You really must be exhausted.”  
  
“I’m not stupid, Jean, and we’re not that great of friends this time but…”  
  
“You and the others are all I have now, Eren,” his voice softened, lifting Eren’s brows towards his hairline. “You’re… god damn it…” he covered his face with a hand. “I don’t even… know…”  
  
“Hey,” Eren straightened up and walked over to him, turquoise eyes soft beneath rectangle frames. “Hey don’t cry you’ll contaminate the lab okay?” A smile pulled at his lips, forcing an awkward grin onto Jean’s still quivering lips. “I’m sorry I stuck you with that.”  
  
“When Marco got sick… we kind of lost everybody,” his voice was a choked sort of sotto, sharp in the quiet hum of the lab. “All our friends fell away, even if they didn’t mean to, because it’s hard to… it’s hard to watch someone die. Y-You and Armin and Mikasa brought him-- brought him a lot of joy…”  
  
Eren’s heart tightened, gripping his friend’s shoulder reassuringly, “Hey… hey it’s okay.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Eren,” he leaned into his touch and closed his eyes.  
  
“I didn’t have anyone to lean on until Armin. Marco… I loved Marco more than anything but I was losing him. I had to watch him fade away and until Armin I was drowning. I was scared of what came next and what I would have to do… I used him.”  
  
Eren wasn’t sure what to do next, searching the oh-so familiar face, and wondering if there was ever a time he’d done this before. _We all really are different now…_  
  
“I never wanted to… I fell into this idea that if I just pushed it away I’d forget about it… I didn’t mean to hurt Armin.”  
  
“What did you fight about?”  
  
“Guilt. Mostly.”  
  
“When did you fight?” Eren wracked his brain, trying to find a time when he’d seen Armin particularly sad… but his friend was more than perfect at hiding his emotions.

“The week before Thanksgiving… he just… I said maybe we should take a break. I said I thought I might be hurting him because I couldn’t… I was afraid I couldn’t love him the way he deserved…” He murmured.  
  
“You thought you were replacing Marco with Armin?” Eren offered the closest answer he could draw up.  
  
“Last time I had a few months to recover and this time I…”

“Hey, man, it’s okay.” Jean looked up from the floor, searching Eren’s face. “Armin gets it you know? He really cares about you, I know that, so take the time you need and I’ll talk to him if you want. It’s been almost two weeks, just take your time.”  
  
“What if I lose him?” Jean whispered. “I can’t lose someone else…”  
  
“You won’t lose Armin, he’s not just going to move on from someone he spent his life with back then and someone he wants to spend his life with now-- he’ll be there waiting when you’re ready to be with him,” Eren smiled.  
  
“You’re a good friend, you know that? I didn’t say that enough to you back then…”  
  
“Ah well… I’m kind of a shitty friend but I’m trying to make up for it now,” Eren slung his bag over his shoulder. “Wanna go get a beer?”  
  
“Yeah, sounds good,” Jean agreed with a weak smile. “Alcohol solves everything, right?”  
  
“So they say,” Eren laughed. 

* * *

_“I love you.”_  

Eren’s words hung in his mind like a half-broken neon sign. The symptom of something greater hedging Levi’s bets and troubling him as he leaned against the wall of the lavatory, sighing at his reflection. He couldn’t regret the things he’d done, he knew that, he couldn’t change his actions… all he could do was own up to them or hope they never bubble to the surface. 

 _Armin is dangerous._ He wasn’t sure why he didn’t remember that. It seemed like something important to bring to the surface, that Eren was surrounded by dangerous and intelligent people, even if Eren himself had a tendency to not think ahead-- Armin _did_.

He was lucky Erwin called at that moment. Lucky that Eren never had the chance to press him for an answer, or maybe he should have said something then… blurted out how much Eren meant to him… but in the end would it matter? Would telling him before he found out about everything really change anything? Would saying the words influence what Eren did when he learned how he’d been manipulated.

 _I bought into this. I let it happen._ He grit his teeth, dropping his head back against the wall behind him. _I just wanted to see him again… and now I’ve got him involved._

* * *

“Shit,” Eren’s hangover crashed into his skull like a half ton truck with the ringing of his cellphone. “Oh god…” he groaned and slapped his hand onto his phone. “No one I know would call at this hour.”

 _“Except me,”_ a familiar voice purred over the line and Eren felt his alcohol soaked heart leap. _“You were up drinking last night weren’t you, little shit.”_  
  
“Why are you insulting me again? Did I do something wrong?” Eren shoved Jean gently, finding that his friend was sprawled across the bed with him.  
  
 _“What was that?”_ Levi asked in reference to the groan that clawed its way out of Eren’s comatose bedmate.  
  
“I took Jean out and got him drunk last night,” Eren closed his eyes against the light. “Shit…”  
  
 _“You guys get drunk a lot, can’t you control yourself?”_ The hint of amusement made Eren smile.  
  
“I seem to remember you once said you’d never get drunk with me, too, but--”  
  
 _“Alright don’t go into too much detail with your favorite drinking buddy there,”_ Levi grumbled. _“That was an accident.”_  
  
“Sure, so have you landed?” Eren burrowed back down under the blanket, pulling a pillow over his head.  
  
 _“We landed a few hours ago…”_ Eren held his breath, waiting, _“I miss you already.”_  
  
His heart leapt into his throat, making it hard to breathe; although that could have been the pillow smothering his head.

 _“How are your finals?_ ” Levi finally asked after a few moments of silence.

“I miss you, too,” Eren choked out. “Sorry I…”  
  
“ _You’re hungover I know…_ ”  
  
“No that’s… uhm finals… I’ve got the rest of them next week but this week I have to turn in my research paper… that’s been hell to get done.”

 _“You mentioned that,_ _sure is hard to write a term paper with a hangover isn’t it?_ ”

“Don’t laugh at me, that’s not nice,” Eren earned a hit to his side from Jean.  
  
“Shut up man! It’s like 6 in the morning!” Jean managed from his own pillow. 

 _“Should I call you back?”_  
  
“Can we Skype tonight?”  
  
 _“I’ve got a business meeting, but maybe.”_  
  
“Okay that’s… that sounds good…” Eren bit his bottom lip, swallowing his heart back down. _I didn’t think I’d miss him this much… just knowing he’s not across the hall is painful._  

 _“Great, I’ll call you later tonight then. Bye.”  
  
_ “Okay bye,” Eren let the silence linger for only a second. “I love you!” But the familiar beeping of the call ending sank his heart into his gut. _He won’t say it back._

* * *

_I’m sorry, Eren._ He looked down at his phone before slipping it into his pocket. “Where are we going first?”

“To the hotel, then we’ll check around the neighborhood for where they were seen last-- you know the drill why ask?” Erwin fell into step with him.

“It’s been a while since I was out with you,” he responded.

“Well I thought that was a better place for you at the time. You needed a chance to relax.”

“One hell of a vacation, Erwin.”

“It did you some good, don’t question it.”

Levi had a feeling that was the only thing he _should_ be doing considering Erwin’s idea of a vacation involved heavy emotional trauma.

* * *

He’d met Erwin his second year of college, sitting in the commons and flicking through immense textbooks. He’d gone to study electronics and ended up in _business_ of all things. 

“You’re Levi, right?” The voice was more than familiar, smooth and educated, echoing somewhere deep in some forgotten memory that Levi fought down with all his might. It came upon him, fluttering the notes he’d been looking at, sending chills down his spine. 

“Yeah what’s it to you?” Levi hazarded a look up.

“My name is Erwin Smith,” widening eyes filled with trickling understanding lifted back to the handsome face above him. 

“Yeah… I know it is.”

Erwin Smith had stumbled upon him in his early stages of mourning, the early stages of his suppression. And everything about him made Levi desperately want to dissociate his identity from that of his past self. He wanted to pretend this Erwin wasn’t manipulative the way he’d been all those millennia before, that maybe he meant what he said about helping.

He threw around big ideas that rich people always seemed to have, though they always had the big money to go along with them, pushing aside Levi’s plans to study hard and get a real job-- no he didn’t have that choice anymore when Erwin shoved himself into Levi’s life. It didn’t matter anymore _why_ he’d shown up, Levi was glad for the distraction: anything to forget. After a while it didn’t even matter what he’d been trying to forget-- that was the beauty of pushing everything down-- after a while you didn’t even think about it anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Outlines by All Time Low.
> 
>  
> 
> **Next chapter will include Levi and Erwin’s backstory!**


	22. This is to end in fire.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say MobuHan? The descent begins and Eren learns more about what's been going on. More of Levi and Erwin's past is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry this chapter was late! I was struggling with a really bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome (as you know from the last chapter note) and as such this chapter was written sparingly during the week. Excuse some choppiness. I tried to eliminate that but it still occurred I'm sure. As always I'm on tumblr as **thingsishouldntbedoing** and I track **fic: metronome** and **fic: the rhythm of a metronome**!
> 
> Happy New Year!

At 19 his face was beginning to fade, quicking from Levi's dreams until he couldn't remember why the rambunctious laughter that beat around his head made him sad; but sometimes Eren would return -- bright and sharp in the dark of bloody nightmares that left Levi sleepless in the dim light of his dorm room.

Sometimes they left cooling streams of tears on his pillow, left an ache in his heart ache, left him breathless with anger-- at himself most of all.

Tonight was one of those nights.

 _"You have to go to sleep, bright eyes,"_ Levi covered his small friend's mouth with his hand, sheltering his yawn.

 _"I'm okay,"_ Eren slurred, curling into the broad warmth of Levi's chest and nuzzling there like a kitten.

_"You can't stay up any later, your mom is gonna kill me."_

_"What Momma doesn't know won't hurt me, right."_

_"Now where did you learn a saying like that?"_ Levi smiled wryly. _"What if I'm tired?"_

_"You don't get tired!"_

_"Now that's not true, I'm 17 I get tired pretty easily. Teenagers need sleep to grow."_

_"'S that why you're so short?"_ Eren giggled, earning fingers to his side and tickles that left him in stitches. He screamed his delight, thrashing wildly.

 _"Just for that you're going to bed now,"_ Levi scooped him up, earning more delighted yelling by turning Eren upside down.

 _"Levi! Levi put me down!"_ Eren laughed, nightshirt hanging in his face. _“I wanna watch the ball drop!”_ He protested, face growing red before he was righted in order to latch his arms around his babysitter’s neck. _“I just wanna watch the ball…”_  
  
 _“It’s ten thirty! You won’t make it to to midnight!”_ Levi replied incredulously.

 _"Levi~"_ there was an edge of pleading to his voice, ocean eyes bright as they looked up between slender arms woven around his neck.

 _How can I say no?_ He nuzzled his cheek.

 _"I'm going to get in so much trouble,"_ Levi murmured and carried his charge back to the couch.

By the time the ball dropped Levi had nodded off, head tucked into his elbow with Eren curled up against his chest. He could feel Eren move, eyes lifting just slightly as he reached up to touch Levi's face with a growing hand, before touching their lips together; soft and gentle. Levi thought he might cry, nuzzling their faces together and earning a soft gasp from the boy as he wrapped his arms around him.

 _"Happy New Year,"_ Eren's cheeks were warm from sleep, plush lips brushing Levi's once more. _"I love you, Levi."_

_“I love you, too.”_

He woke with a start, heart pounding in his chest as he glanced around wildly for something to hang on to. Something solid that would pull him out of his nightmares, clutching at the cheap bedside table as he swung his legs out and staggered to the door of his room, because suddenly he was nineteen again and everything was spinning.

“Is everything okay?” Levi nearly jumped out of his skin as his roommate stopped him halfway down the hallway to the washroom. Erwin stood tall and dark at the end of the hallway, backlit by the washed out light of the kitchen, messy blonde hair pushed back from his handsome face.  
  
“Yeah… yeah just nightmares and stuff…” Levi murmured.  
  
Erwin knew what was happening, he watched Levi struggle to forget-- struggle to keep the memories from resurfacing-- and fail at times like this. But what else could he do? Levi had never been one to listen to Erwin about his personal life; even in the past.  
  
“Do you want to work with me? I’ve got some paperwork I’m going through.”  
  
“Who are you looking for this time?” Levi murmured, running fingers through his long hair as he followed the broad shoulders through into the kitchen.

“A woman named Hanji Zoe,” Erwin glanced to check Levi’s reaction, the corners of his mouth turning down just slightly to find that Levi seemed unaffected by the name. “Are you…”  
  
“I think I’m going back to bed,” Levi turned his back to him.  
  
“You can’t keep pushing it all back.”  
  
“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. I don’t need all this. I don’t need to know all this.”  
  
“So forget about it but don’t turn your back on me. Push it all down and forget what you want to forget.”  
  
“Why the hell do I need to know all that shit? Why do I need to remember? What’s it worth? Torturing myself with old memories I can’t change. I just want to make new memories.”  
  
Erwin leaned back in his chair, sucking on the pen in his mouth for a tense moment, drumming fingers down on the table before him. He watched Levi shift his body, tilt his shoulder down and push his hip to the side with muscular arms folded over his chest defiantly.

“It’s not important that you remember right now. It’s important that you remember eventually.”  
  
“But why… why do we remember this shit? What’s the fucking point?” Levi finally released his arms, gripping the doorway with one broad hand. “You must know Erwin.”  
  
“I think I have some idea. First help me find Hanji Zoe.”

* * *

_“So what have you been up to?”_ Levi’s smooth voice rose the flesh on Eren’s arms, forcing a smile onto his tired face. _“Studying?”_

“Catching up on lab work,” Eren wished he could reach out through the screen and touch his lover’s face, enjoying seeing the almost imperceptible smile tugging at his lips. “How long are you going to be?”  
  
“Not very long. A few days maybe? I don’t know my line of work is complicated,” Levi shrugged a shoulder, leaning back in his leather computer chair.  
  
“Is it cold there?”  
  
“Very.”  
  
“I miss you.”  
  
“I know you do, bright eyes, I miss you, too. Have you run out of things to talk about?  
  
“Well I need to write a grant renewal for that money I got at the beginning of the semester, it’s always frustrating asking for money… but my research needs it.”  
  
“Indeed it does,” Levi agreed, turning his head at the slotting of a card key in the door. “Erwin.”  
  
“Is that Eren?” A figure strode up to the computer, a leather coated hand clutching the back of Levi’s chair to support the frame that leaned down to peer at Eren.  
  
“Hello, Erwin,” Eren’s voice was cool but he supposed he was grateful to him. Without his influence Levi never would have admitted to being the person from Eren’s dreams.

“You sound delighted to see me,” Erwin chuckled. “Levi it’s time to go.”  
  
“Sure,” Levi glanced back at Eren. “I’ll call you tomorrow okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I miss you, Levi.”  
  
“I miss you, too.”  
  
Eren watched the call vanish, chewing his bottom lip. For a long moment he stared at the place where Levi’s face had been only moments before.

“I love you, Levi. Why don’t you say it back?”

* * *

Eren sighed at the knock on his lab door, rising to answer it. He wondered what the point was of having a window in the door. The glass was always filled with flyers and laminated warnings to wear lab coats and use proper lab safety and _only authorized personnel beyond this point._ He could see brown hair over the top of a paper warning, turning the handle and swinging the door open.

“Eren!” A pair of arms wrapped around his waist and he was quite suddenly being lifted off his feet by a complete stranger. “I’ve wanted to meet you for so long!”  
  
“H-Hanji?” He grunted out a question, letting the woman spin him around. Her voice was familiar, bright and sharp in his memories.  
  
“You remember me!” She laughed as she set him on his feet, hands clutching at her hips.  
  
“Hanji!” A third voice echoed down the hallway, sounding breathless and a little haggard, and a man with light brown hair came into view, stopping short of the door to pant towards the ground, bracing himself on his knees. “Do-Don’t run off like that!”  
  
“Moburrito! You should have kept up!” Hanji grinned.  
  
 _Nothing’s changed._ Eren blinked.  
  
“Uh well I’m getting some work done so why don’t you come on in?” Eren smiled. “How did you find me?”  
  
“Erwin and Levi! We’ve been working together don’t you know? I had heard from Erwin you and Levi had some kind of falling out…” Hanji glanced around, running her fingers over the spectrometer absently.  
  
“Oh… yeah we did…” Eren offered Moblit a hand.  
  
“It has been a long time Eren Jaeger,” he smiled, accepting Eren’s offered assistance.  
  
“Yeah it really has… and you’re still running around after Hanji, huh?”  
  
“It would seem I am doomed to it,” Moblit smile appreciatively. “At least this time the worst thing she can do is get a hold of a deadly weapon.”  
  
“Which could be anything,” Eren glanced over to find her flipping through his notes. “Hey! How about we go get some lunch?” He slapped his research binder closed, earning a pair of pouted lips from Hanji.  
  
“I just wanted to see what you’re working on… Levi said it was pretty impressive…”  
  
“Well I’ll tell you at lunch how’s that?”  
  
“It is a little less dangerous at lunch,” Moblit offered.  
  
Eren regretted the suggestion of lunch the moment they set foot outside the lab building, face souring beneath his scarf in the cold. He wished he was back in his warm lab not listening to Hanji shout over the thick neck of her jacket, laughing the whole way to the car-- which Eren was glad to see was driven by Moblit.  
  
“So tell me, Eren, how are you feeling about Levi? Has he invited you to Europe yet?” Hanji asked over the table as she rolled her straw wrapper between her fingers.  
  
“Europe? Why?”  
  
“Well you know he’s there for a while with Erwin for business, right?”

“Sure but he’s not going to be there that long, right?”  
  
“Mike, Zakarius I’m sure you remember him, said that they would be a few weeks at least.” Moblit’s voice finally joined the fray again after a while of listening to Eren and Hanji’s rapidfire discussions.  
  
“Mike…” Eren remembered _him_ distinctly as well, chuckling fondly. “I can’t believe we were all so easy to find.”  
  
“Easy!?” Hanji gasped incredulously. “It was by no means easy! It took millions of Erwin’s money and years of our lives to find all of you!”

The ensuing silence had Moblit fidgeting with his plate, tracing over and obsessing the pads of his fingers with the tiniest chip on the porcelain. Hanji seemed to still under Eren’s burning eyes, glancing to her assistant curiously. 

“What do you mean?” Eren finally spoke, voice bone-chilling.  
  
“What-what do _you_ mean?” Hanji smiled weakly, adjusting her glasses.  
  
“Levi was helping me find my friends from back then. How would it have taken years to find us all? I’ve only known him for six months?”  
  
“Oh well yeah of course! I meant people like Mike or myself you know?” Hanji smiled. “Erwin and Levi found us.”  
  
“Erwin and Levi…” Eren murmured. “They knew all along.”  
  
“What?” Hanji started to feel nervous.  
  
“They don’t know you’re here do they?”  
  
“N-No I mean I just thought that since--” she dropped her head to the side thoughtfully. 

“Since they were keeping you from me that you’d come find me while they’re away…” Eren stared his food down. _I’m an idiot._  
  
“Eren?”  
  
“They knew where everyone was. Levi already knew where all my friends were, didn’t he? That’s how he gave me their information.”  
  
Moblit exchanged looks with Hanji for a moment, nerves showing on his face.  
  
“Eren… it’s not…”  
  
“No it’s exactly what I thought. I should… have expected it… but _why_?” Eren grit his teeth. “Why is… everything happening? What the hell is going on, Hanji?”  
  
“I don’t know… I have some idea but…”

“But what?” Eren pressed.  
  
“Eren, I don’t think you’re going to like it.” 

* * *

“You’re going _where_?” Armin asked incredulously.

“To Germany. Levi’s in Germany right now and I’m going to meet him,” Eren told him as he threw clothes into a backpack.  
  
“He’s not going to like this,” Armin seemed almost _pleased_ and for some reason that irritated Eren further.  
  
“Why are you so smug? Did you know about this? Did you know he was lying to me again?”  
  
“I had… well I had a feeling. I asked him to tell you, though.”  
  
“ _Armin!_ ”  
  
“I didn’t know why they were doing this! I don’t understand it. I just know that there’s something strange going on… I thought there was when I found out what the company was that Levi worked for.”  
  
“Why?” Eren asked. “Wait you know what he does?”  
  
“I did a little research… I got curious after you started dating and I… didn’t have much else to do I guess…” Armin rubbed the back of his neck, looking out the window. “He works for a research company, at least that’s their ploy. They run archaeological dig sites here in the United States and all over the world. They’re responsible for labs all over the country, fingers in every pie so to speak--”  
  
“Armin are you saying…”  
  
“That grant you got wasn’t given to you on accident,” he watched the blood drain from Eren’s face.  
  
“And Levi living across from me?”  
  
“I think that was a happy accident, as far as I can tell.”

“Armin what have we stumbled into? What have I done?”  
  
“I don’t know, buddy,” Armin murmured. “Something’s happening and I wish I could explain it to you.”  
  
“Keep an eye on Mikasa… I need to talk to you about Jean but…”  
  
“Don’t worry about that, Eren, I’ve spoken to him.”  
  
“Armin…”  
  
“It’s fine… we’re going to try and work it out. I can be patient. I’ve waited two thousand years to be with him. I can wait a few more,” Armin’s lip quivered. “I made a mistake.”  
  
“No…” Eren pulled him into his arms and buried his face against his hair. “No Armin you didn’t. He loves you. He’s just confused okay?”  
  
“Just remember that for yourself… Levi loves you. I know that. Even if he hasn’t done any of this the right way. Even if there have been lies. I think it’s to protect you from something bad.”  
  
“Right now I don’t care. I have to know. I can’t keep letting this happen.”  
  
“Don’t get in trouble, though, okay? Please… please be careful.”  
  
“I will be, I’ll see you when your finals are over.” Eren squeezed him gently.  
  
“Are you ready to go?” Mikasa asked from the front door. “Your flight leaves in three hours.”  
  
Eren nodded, pulling his jacket on.

At least this time he’d be able to tell Levi he loved him face to face.

And force the last answers out of him.

Wipe away the last of Levi’s lies so they could finally move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran.
> 
> I am so sorry about this chapter being so choppy don't hate meeeeeee


	23. My mind is made up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren meets Levi in Germany. The beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long guys. Returning to regular update schedule. Chapter 24 up on Friday! :)

It wasn’t as if he thought he’d get to Germany without Levi knowing. At this point he wasn’t sure what Levi _didn’t_ know. At this point… nothing made sense.

But when he arrived and he found a familiar face with a not-so-familiar expression upon it he was dumbstruck. Levi looked _guilty_ , eyes meeting Eren’s for only a moment before he turned and beckoned him to follow.   
  
All of Eren’s anger dissipated.

He’d spent an entire plane ride fuming, he’d slept and dreamt and woken filled with anger at his situation. Anger at being lied to and used and abused and anger at himself for falling for it all. He’d been so furious with Levi, but seeing his face and watching the way his shoulders slumped as he walked away… his heart ached. All he wanted to do was understand. He just wanted to know what was going on and why.  
  
“Levi!” He quickened his pace to keep up with him, dodging passengers and reaching for the collar of his jacket. “Levi I--”  
  
“I know why you’re here,” Levi caught his hand before he could touch him. “But we can’t talk about it here, okay?”

“When, then? I need to know! Levi what the hell is going on? I have…”  
  
“Shut up for a second,” the look on his face was almost painful and Eren clutched at him. “Just come with me.”

“Okay,” Eren followed him quietly to a town car and slid into the backseat. “Wow this is nice,” he slid his fingers over the dark leather, wishing he could strike up a conversation as Levi adjusted in his seat and reached out to slide the barrier up, shutting the driver out from their conversation. Eren’s stomach churned, watching the dark haired man roll a single cigarette between his fingers without lighting it. He had only seen him smoke once, and the sight had always lingered, but this was unwarranted-- at least he thought so. This had no explanation.

Everything that had gone through his head, all the anger and frustration of the nights he’d been feeling-- he couldn’t believe it had all vanished. He wondered if he had really been surprised by everything he’d found out. If he’d really been shocked by all the happenings. If he’d really ever been angry with Levi to begin with and had merely acted that way to please his friend… to show that he wasn’t going to be outwitted so easily. 

But then he remembered Hanji’s surprise. Remembered how she had let slip information no one had bothered to tell him… though he supposed it wasn’t _lying_ so much as omitting information. Important information. Especially when he was certain he’d asked Levi _directly_ where he got his information.

“You’re the reason I got that scholarship.”  
  
“Yes.”

“You knew I’d be looking for the others,” Eren watched him.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You already knew where they all were.”  
  
“That’s not necessarily true,” Levi finally interrupted. “Eren it’s really complicated.”  
  
“You know what? I can remember a time when there were titans roaming the earth. I remember when we were bound behind walls and desperate for escape. I remember the smell of piss and blood in the air on battlefields filled with half eaten bodies and the cries of soldiers half dead and crying for their mothers. If you think for a second that _this_ is the most complicated thing I’ve ever experienced try waking up with blood seeping out of your hand with no knowledge of _why.”_ He pulled his sleeve back.   
  
“You bit yourself?” Levi’s voice was awestruck as he caught Eren’s fingers in his and pulled the gauze free, blue eyes flickering. “It’s never gone that far before?”  
  
“No… I remember biting in my dreams but… I woke up with it like that,” Eren murmured.  
  
“And you didn’t say anything?” Eren couldn’t say he wasn’t pleased with the worry that filled his lover’s eyes.  
  
“I didn’t want to bother you, it wasn’t a big deal. I’ve done lots of other weird things because of my dream but--”  
  
“Eren you bit yourself!” Levi stressed. “You broke the skin!”  
  
He couldn’t remember why. He wished he could. He had woken up to pain, to blood dripping off his hand and into his mouth and down the front of his shirt. He’d woken up screaming. With tears on his face and on his skin and sobs heaving his chest.

"This needs to be stitched!" Levi was saying when Eren snapped to attention, the taste of iron still hot in his mouth. "What is wrong with you?"

"It's got butterfly bandages!" Eren replied, shuddering when Levi's fingers traced the raw wound. "It's fine!"

"It's not fine! This has gone too far!" Levi's voice was filled with fear, achingly sharp against Eren's burning ears. Embarrassment flooded into him, shame, hot and brutal. "You broke the skin..." Levi's voice roughened and he lifted Eren's hand to his lips and kissed the wounds. "You idiot."

"Levi?" Eren wasn't sure he'd seen him this way, not even in his dreams. He'd never heard so much pain in his voice or seen such a look of abysmal sadness. It hurt worse than Eren thought it would, hurt his chest worse than the wound Levi kissed and whispered soft words to. "I'm sorry."

"I've pushed you to this," Levi murmured. "I should have been there with you."

"You didn't do anything."

"Of course I didn't do anything and when I saw you when your mother died I should have..."

"My... I didn't..."

"No of course not! Because I'm a damned fool Eren! Haven't you learned that by now? I'm a fucking idiot and I can't... I just wanted... And instead I've fucked it all up. I wanted to forget you. I wanted so badly to let you live in peace..."

"Levi everything... I don't understand anything at all. I have even more questions now," Eren caught his face in his hands, grimacing at the warmth of Levi's face against his wound. "Please tell me what's happening and why."

"Eren I don't know," he whispered. "I've fucked up. I've made so many decisions and... I've got so many regrets. I don't know where to start with you."

"I love you," Eren touched their lips together. "Even after all this, even though I know you lied and... You keep lying to me I... I love you and I can't stop. Whatever you have to say please just say it because I can't do this anymore. I can't! I can't be kept in the dark and aching because every time I think it's all fixed something _else_ happens and I can't... I can't do this anymore... Tell me the truth," Eren held his gaze, face set. "Stop running. You've made mistakes, you made mistakes in our other life and you never ran from them."

"I wanted you to be happy," Levi murmured. "That's all I ever wanted."

"We're here, sirs," the driver opened the door, casting a bright light on their dark situation.

 

* * *

 

The hotel room was larger than Eren had expected, even after seeing it behind Levi on their Skype calls, with a sitting area and a plush bed that he tossed his duffel onto before peeling off his winter coat.

"I always take the low road," Levi murmured, breaking the silence that had hung between them through the elevator ride.

"What?"

"I always take the easy way out."

"I think you took the hard way." 

"In the end, I probably did, but I wanted to take the easy road."

"Well when you were a kid that was probably..." Eren sighed. "This is something we didn't talk about that night."

"No, you're right, and we should have."

"I was just happy to have you there... I've loved you for two thousand years. I always wanted you by my side."

"And I was happy to be there, but I screwed up. I should have said something then. Talking about the past wasn't enough... But I had hoped that it would be just to save my own skin... Again."

"You were at my mother's funeral?"

"I stood in the back. I wanted to see you but... Eren by then I could barely... I'd pushed all of it down. I pushed you out if my thoughts because it hurt too badly to think about you."

"I... Understand... I think I did the same to you," Eren slid his fingers over the bedside table and sat down to pull his boots off. "It hurt so badly when you left."

"You were just a kid. I wanted to protect you," Levi ran his fingers through his hair, slinging his coat over the desk chair. "I just wanted to keep you happy. I thought that if I was gone you'd... Maybe you wouldn't remember. Maybe you could live a happy life and not remember all that shit."

"But I did."

" _Captain_ Levi wouldn't make the decisions I did," he whispered. "You're in love with a man I could never measure up to."

"Levi..." Eren looked over, searching the broad shoulders for a sign of emotion, wishing he could reach out and touch him-- comfort him. "Levi if you think for a second that Captain wouldn't have made mistakes and regretted them... Captain Levi was... He wasn't perfect! That's what I love about you! I loved you then and I love you now and I can keep loving you because I know you're... You."

"I'm not him! Eren I'm not the brave hero you worshipped all those years ago!"

"I KNOW THAT!" Eren felt anger bubble in his chest. "And I knew that then! Don't you know?! You'll never be the hero people think you are! Heroes are stupid! They're not real! They're these idealized creations humans warp for their own means! You were never the hero they thought you were... Never the hero I thought you were..." His voice trembled. "You were... You _are_ so much more... And who cares if you made mistakes?! Who gives a shit? I don't! And I'm the one you're worried about! Whatever happened in the past isn't what matters. We can't change that! God damn it can't we just move on?! I want to start my life with you already! I've waited all these years!”

 _"If you go down, I go down with you._ "

_"You want to see the world with your friends."_

_"No one else can kill me. If the antidote reaches me I'll..."_

_"Eren, stop."_

The sound of a promise across two thousand years rang in his ears, unforgiving.

"It's all over, Levi, everything is over... Let's just... Just tell me what I need to know and please let's... Let's get married or something. Something. Anything. Just spend the rest of your life with me because I'm tired of waiting for you. I'm exhausted. Emotionally, mentally, physically... I'm just tired. And all I want is you."

Levi turned to face him, face drawn and forlorn, before passing his fingers through his hair once more, “I just don’t know, Eren.”  
  
Then Eren was there, pulling Levi against his chest and enveloping him in his arms, and nuzzling his face against the top of his head. Eren was there and warm and loving, a hand tangled into Levi’s hair.   
  
Levi couldn’t help the way his heart warmed, burying his face against Eren’s breast and wrapping his arms around his waist. He had expected less, that Eren would rant and rave and yell at him in a fury… but despite the happiness that it hadn’t happened it left a bittersweet taste in his mouth… he had worn his lover down. Had hurt him further by trying to protect him.   
  
“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past,” Levi muttered into the soft fabric of Eren’s shirt. He liked the way Eren smelled, like lavender and vanilla, it was familiar-- like coming home.   
  
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Levi. I want to know but…”  
  
“Shh… just…” Levi closed his eyes and leaned against him, letting Eren counter their weight. “I’m sorry.” The room fell quiet and for the longest time he let his breathing shallow, let the world slow to the beat of Eren’s heart. He’d made mistakes. He’d wanted to protect Eren and ended up hurting him more… but now Eren was here and willing. Willing to learn what had happened and why… and Levi wanted to tell him. To spill all of it and… get married… or something… he chuckled at the thought and sighed heavily.

But that would all have to wait.  
  
“Do you remember Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover?”  
  
He should have expected the reaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awe our baby eren is growing up.
> 
> tumblr: **thingsishouldntbedoing**
> 
> tracking: **fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome**


	24. The things we lost in the fire.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry Armin.

Armin folded a sweater neatly, tucking it into his suitcase before stopping to take a sip of wine. Because getting drunk and forgetting about all of his concerns sounded like a better idea than wallowing in them without Eren being there.

The idea of getting on a plane and flying to Germany was daunting, if not terrifying, and the more the thought about it the more it worried him. He worried that all of this would be for nothing, but he’d already spent the money on the ticket to please Eren.

 _I allowed you to get to this point, didn’t I?_ He walked down the hallway to the kitchen, setting his glass up onto the counter. _I’ve had too much to drink, I think._ He rubbed his face with his hands, ponytail bobbing with the movement. _Everything that’s happened has led to this. I could have said no that first day in the library… but would that have stopped anything?_  
  
He was sure that there was nothing he could have done. Eren would have continued, bullheadedly forward, until he got what he wanted; no matter what Armin said.

 _He’s never changed._ His dreams had grown more vivid in the past months, leaving him ragged and pained when he woke in the morning… and making his separation from Jean all the more sharp and bitter. 

He could recall long days spent by Jean’s side when he became Commander, longer days spent helping to guide pilgrims from the walls out into the open world. In the months and years after Eren’s death he could still remember the tortuous feeling of loss. The feeling of losing Eren and never being with him to see the world they had dreamt of for so long.  
  
“What am I missing?” He wondered aloud to his empty apartment. _In the past I wouldn’t be lost this way._ He ground the heel of his hand against his forehead, gritting his teeth. _In the past I would know the answer, right?_

A knock at his door had him jumping, hurrying over to answer it. It couldn’t be Mikasa, he was due to meet her the next day, and it certainly wasn’t Eren…. so he wasn’t sure why he was so surprised when he opened the door.  
  
“Jean…” he breathed his name, love filling his chest.  
  
“Hey,” he smiled sheepishly and Armin threw his arms around his neck. “Hi!” His voice picked up into a laugh and Armin buried his face in his shoulder. “I’m so sorry I just got your messages…”  
  
“It’s okay it doesn’t matter,” Armin whispered. _Are you the reason my thoughts were so clouded?_ He caught his hand into his undercut and looked up into his golden eyes, heart aching. “Jean…”  
  
“I came here for me,” he told him softly. “I didn’t come here for Marco or for you or for anyone else. I came here because I missed you. I know I’m broken, Armin, but I’m picking up the pieces and now that I’ve had some time to think… I lost one person. I can’t lose you.”  
  
“You don’t have to worry about losing me, idiot, I care about you and if you need time to heal that’s all that matters,” he caught Jean’s face in his hands. “Never worry about that.”  
  
“You called me an idiot,” he bumped their foreheads together affectionately. The motion made him sick with nostalgia and he straightened up.  
  
“What is it?” Armin blinked.  
  
“All those years ago… you said something similar to me,” Jean’s voice grew dark. “You told me not to worry and… our foreheads touched like that… and I remember feeling…”  
  
Armin the urge to vomit overtook him, clasping a hand over his mouth.

He had come to the sudden and jarring realization of what had been missing all along. What had been weighing so heavily on his shoulders all these years. The root of all the problems they were facing. 

And who was responsible for it.

 

* * *

 

" _Traitors_ ," was the first word out of Eren’s mouth. "Why are you asking about them?" Levi felt fear in his chest as Eren's brows bore down on his face, turning the softness of sadness into the harsh angles of vehement hatred.

"They're not traitors in this life, remember that," Levi warned.

"If they remember they are!" Eren's anger began to rise again. "I don't care what life they're living! They murdered innocent people!"

"So did we! You know how many people died in Stohess?" The name spilled from his lips, sharp and clear and it seemed to shut Eren down. "Stop thinking in the past for once and think about _right now_."

Levi watched him think, watched what he'd said sink into Eren's thick skull, “You said you wanted to get married right?”  
  
“I uh…” Eren hesitated. He had said that in a moment of passion and frustration, an unthinking way to end the argument. _Did I really mean it?_ He supposed he did. The thought of spending his life with Levi was more than just appealing.  
  
“You don’t say things you don’t mean when you’re angry. I think that’s the time when you’re most honest,” Levi told him, smoothing hands against Eren’s chest. “Eren…” he sighed heavily.  
  
“What about Reiner and Bertholdt?” Eren changed the subject, looking off to the side. _You haven’t even said you loved me._  
  
“This conversation isn’t going to be what I want it to be is it?” Levi let a smile flicker across his lips, brows shifting into a wry crook. “We’ve found them.”  
  
“Found them?” Eren gasped, face softening into surprise.  
  
“Did you think we weren’t going to?”  
  
“When did all this start, Levi?" Eren sat down again, sliding his hands down Levi's arms to catch his hands. "I'm not worried about them yet. What happened after you left?"

"I met Erwin. He convinced me to help him track down everyone who was involved in the Scouting Legion. Anyone who remembered things from behind the walls."

"Most people don't even know they existed..."

"That's what made it easy, though, it was easier to learn who was lying and who wasn't. Easy to track down people with nightmares like yours. Erwin has connections in governments all over the world, he used them to look into treatments for people with hallucinations, things like that," Levi clutched Eren's hands, careful not to harm the fresh wound on his thumb. "People like you."

"Sounds illegal," Eren murmured.

"Probably is but... Eren do you remember Stohess?"

"I..." He caught flashes of memories like the fluttering of wings-- quick and light. He saw blood and destruction. The determined face of his sister. The concerned look on his best friend's face as he was pulled from an encapsulating heat.

"Annie..." He whispered. 

"Annie Leonhardt," Levi said in affirmation.

"What are you saying?" Eren felt bile rise in his throat, heart racing. The images of bloodshed and half-eaten bodies and lumbering beasts rose to the front of his mind and he rose to his feet. " _What are you saying, Levi?"_

"The Wallists, the Reiss family; they're still around."

"That can't be! Levi you're..."

"We've seen them. We know Historia Reiss has been reborn, that her name has continued despite their fall from grace."

" _What about Annie, Levi_?" He wasn't going to let it go, fear tightening in his chest.

"We still have to ask Braun and Hoover but... No one had come into contact with her reincarnated form."

Eren knew what it meant, knew what it _could_ mean. He knew and it terrified him to the point that he paled, gripping Levi's shoulders for support. He released a weak _'no'._ The sound of defeat and terror.

"If someone else finds her first..."

"The titans could return," Eren trembled and Levi lifted his hand to cradle the back of his neck.

Levi could heard the ticking of a clock. The lulling tick tock of seconds passing off the minutes left before the final hours of his search. He heard them slow, heard the swinging of a pendulum in tight air, before the speed began to rise.

The rhythm of the metronome that had haunted all this time; the sound of what little time he had left, a manic countdown to the crescendo his life had been rushing toward, had finally reached its peak against the rampant orchestra of Eren's symphonic anger that rose with a screech of bows on strings in a mad dash to the finish. 

He only wished he knew how long the countdown would last.

 

* * *

 

“Armin?” Jean pounded on the door of the bathroom. The blonde had vanished through the door, slipping through his fingers like smoke. “Armin what’s going on?” He pressed his hands against the door, resting his head against the flimsy particle board and wishing he understood what was happening.

He’d heard him retch. Once, twice, and dry heave a third. What could have overtaken him this way?

“Armin?” He heard a weak sob, could almost hear his trembling bones against the porcelain.  
  
“I fucked up, Jean.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: metronome, fic: the rhythm of a metronome


	25. Silence.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never watchful enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY! Sorry this took me forever to update and I'm sorry that this chapter is kind of lacking in quality but I needed to get it out because I've been sitting on it forever. I'm trying to get back to more regular updating. 
> 
> find me on **tumblr** @ thingsishouldntbedoing

Catching smoke between your fingers was impossible, Eren thought, curling his fingers around the frosty air he exhaled. The passive action was pacifying in a way, the repetitive, pointless motions helped calm his fraying nerves.

_This wasn’t what I wanted._  
  
He almost wished he remembered nothing. That the nightmares hadn’t plagued him. Everything seemed to have gone too far, long past where he thought he’d be at this point.

He’d wanted to find his friends. See the people they became and the lives they had now. Find out if they were happy. If darkness no longer towered over them.

Now, however, it seemed darkness would linger in their very souls: tainted by the blood of the past.  
  
“Oh god…” A softly accented voice reached deep into his thoughts and drew him out and he found Levi watching him with a bemused sort of expression.   
  
“Huh?” Eren looked up to find that their bell had been answered, a tall man with dark hair peered around the door at them-- recognition in his eyes. “Bertholdt…”  
  
“What are you doing here? You can’t be here,” the familiar giant pushed the door closed.  
  
“Not so fast,” Levi’s hand caught the frame, “We have a few questions.”  
  
“Questions?” The dark haired man stuttered out the word, face pale. “What do you want?”  
  
“Answers, Bert,” Eren blurted after a moment of hesitation. “Let us in! Can’t you see there’s something going on here?! You remember us! I know you do!”  
  
Bertholdt fiddled with the latch on the door, running his fingers over his mouth for a moment, “You have to promise me something…”  
  
“I won’t promise anything without the truth,” Levi leaned on the door.  
  
“Reiner doesn’t… he doesn’t remember. You have to promise…” Bertholdt pressed his lips together. “I don’t want him to know what happened. You can talk to me but…”  
  
“Bert? Who’s there?” Yet another familiar voice asked. “Let them in! Why are you being so shy?” The good natured blonde seemed happy to see them, a large hand prying the door from Bertholdt’s grip. “Are you friends of Bertholdt’s?”  
  
Levi glanced over at Eren, watching the ocean eyes of his lover grow stormy -- some strange mixture of pity and desperation on the crests of sadness. The boy hung on a tightrope, watching the threads of his life fray and unwind with each new word.

_Why does this one not remember?_  
  
Levi didn’t understand any of this, if there was anything to understand. He wasn’t sure the world could ever be understood the way he had once learned it -- through the gray gaze of a boy in the underworld… but sometimes he wished he could apply that knowledge once more.  
  
“Yeah we’re friends,” Eren smiled. “How are you? This is Levi, and I’m Eren Jaeger.”  
  
“That’s a German name but you are no German! Come in we have Spätzle!” Reiner caught him by the collar and pulled him into the house.

Bertholdt looked out the door under Levi’s wary gaze, then back at the strangers in his kitchen.

If Levi wasn’t uneasy before, he was uneasy now.

 

* * *

"Armi--?" He slumped down into himself, murmuring Armin's name in his sleep. In the faded morning light Armin was made very aware of the fact that he had spent the entire night shut up in the washroom, from the wrinkled clothes and the slightly concave feeling in his stomach -- everything was screaming exhaustion. "Armin!" Jean shot upright, freezing the blonde in his movements. "You're out!"

"Yeah... Why didn't you sleep on the bed?” He rubbed his arm, toeing the ground.   
  
“What…” Jean’s voice died on his lips and Armin shook his head. An unspoken moment passed between them, a unison quietus that spoke volumes in uncertainty and subtle anxiety.  
  
“There’s only one thing I can do…”  
  
“You can’t _tell_ them, Armin! They’ll… you don’t even know who these people are now!”  
  
“I know that I can trust Levi, maybe I can’t trust anyone else…”  
  
“If they find out what you did… what you know…”  
  
“They may already have.”  
  
Another earth-shattering silence fell between them, the kind of hush that cracked the temples beat its mighty fists against the cochlea of its victims… a furious thunder that struck fear into the heart of the bravest warrior.

Only they weren’t warriors any longer.

They were helpless.  
  
“So everything we talked about?” Jean’s hand clenched into a fist on his knee. “Everything you said last night was--”  
  
“Speculation… I don’t know anything right now, Jean.”  
  
“You know everything Armin! You’ve been right every step of the way! Ever since we were young it was always you! Stop being uncertain! You know the answer and you know how to get us there!”  
  
“I don’t have that kind of cash on hand, Jean! I’m not _Eren_! I don’t just go off on half-cocked plans to chase a guy I barely know!”  
  
“This could change the _world_ Armin! This could mean… don’t you… doesn’t it mean anything?”  
  
“Okay so say I do go? Say we go and the book is there and I’ve led us to the greatest historical discovery in centuries? Say we go and we discover a body suspended in amber and there’s a girl inside of there that’s terrified and we all look the same but somehow we’re all different? She speaks another language! She’s from _biblical_ times almost, Jean!”  
  
“Are you scared of what a block of stone is going to do?”  
  
“I’m scared of _titans_.”  
  
“Yeah… well who the hell isn’t?” Jean muttered. “But there’s a lot more to this story than just monsters that eat people. If we don’t get there first… if someone else remembers the book…”  
  
“I have to call Eren,” Armin whispered.  
  
“You damn well better call Eren.”  


* * *

 

The flicker of the hearth lit Bertholdt’s face as he stood watch over their conversation, dark eyes careful under Levi’s hawk-like gaze. He seemed almost a passive force, just as he had been millenia before, and Eren couldn’t help but let his mind flicker through memories like water dripping between his fingers.

Like blood dripping from an open wound.

Memories that could not be staunched no matter how the hard he pressed against the opening.

He saw Bertholdt and Reiner during training, heard the sounds of their laughter, the half-muffled conversations in the forest during his kidnap… he picked up fragments here and there even as Reiner jabbered on in his usual friendly manner, innocently happy just to have guests.  
  
“Eren,” he looked up when he heard his name. “I’ve seen Krista.”  
  
A silence fell over them, one that unknowingly echoed the silence thousands of miles away, only this one had Levi to break it.  
  
“When? Where?” Levi rose abruptly from his chair. “Why the hell wasn’t this the first thing you said to us?”  
  
A sheen of sweat broke on Bertholdt’s face and he wiped it away with his sleeve, “I-I didn’t know if I could trust you…”  
  
“Where is she?” Levi took a step towards him menacingly.  
  
 _How did I get involved in this?_  

“I don’t know where she is now.”  
  
 _Why is this happening?_  
  
“Who was with her? Did she recognize you?” Levi scowled.  
  
 _I feel sick._  
  
“I think she’d seen Ymir… I know she was scared there were people after her…”  
  
 _I should say something?_  
  
 _What do I say?_

_I just wanted to see my friends again._

**_The world is spinning..._**  
  
“Eren!” Reiner caught him, shutting down the argument between Bertholdt and Levi. 

“Eren?! Get his feet up!”  
  
Their voices circled the drain, hollow in his ears as his vision flickered at the edges. In the chaos he could hear his phone ringing, saw Bertholdt slip quietly into the back room, but no one paid him any heed…

_How convenient…_ was the last thing his brain could conjure before his eyes rolled and nausea took him.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t get through,” Armin sighed, tapping one foot anxiously. “We’re just going to have to go look on our own.”

  
“That’s fine, I had the money transferred over. Mikasa says she wants to know all the details when she gets here,” Jean slipped his phone into his pocket. He watched Armin jiggle, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear repeatedly until the motions became aggravated. “Hey,” he caught his fingers and brought his hand to his lips. “It’s okay. He’s with Levi, right?”  
  
“Right… right you’re right he’s safe with Levi,” Armin swallowed. “What if it’s not there?”  
  
“Armin,” Jean warned.  
  
“I’m not being doubtful I’m being serious! It’s been two thousand years! Someone could have found it… someone could have translated it…”  
  
“Doubtful, since knowledge of the titans isn’t widespread.”  
  
“Yet another example of ignorance is bliss. If you pretend it never happened maybe it won’t happen again, right?”  
  
“Yeah, maybe it won’t happen again. And come on, _titans_? _Here_ and _now_? We could handle them no problem. We have planes and naval ships and cars and tanks and machine guns and god damn nuclear bombs… they’re less of a threat now than anything else out there.”  
  
“You planning on nuking titans, Commander?” They didn’t need a double take before Jean bristled protectively, catching Armin’s elbow and pulling him back.  
  
“Ymir…”  
  
“Your Queen wishes to see you,” she gave a half-cocked grin.


	26. Didn't know I was lost.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are memories really that reliable?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been gone for so long lovelies! I should be updating a little more regularly now. I think my mojo might be back? Bit of a short chapter but there you go.

If the world was perfectly aligned Eren would have been rested and relaxed when he woke. If the world had been perfect and crisp and fresh like the air outside the walls he would have taken a deep breath and relished in the flavor.

If the world had been perfect he wouldn't have awoken to Levi's sussurred hushes and the crashing of glass outside the room they were in... Which wasn't really a room to begin with.

"Where are we?" He earned a shoulder to his face to muffle his voice, acutely aware of the cupboard sized compartment they were crushed into.

"Well? Where the hell are they, Bertholdt?" A voice asked viciously. "You said they were here!"

"I-- they were!" He protested, voice dampened by the wood floors above them. Eren looked up through the cracks in the boards, breathing stifled against Levi's jacket.

 _I wish Armin was here._ He crushed his hand into his pocket, reaching for his phone-- a comfort.

 _Armin would know what to do._ He looked up at Levi's face, tracing the serious lines and curved frown. He wondered what he was thinking... If he was just taking in the words that were spoken or actually considering a way to escape... If there was one.

 

* * *

 

Armin folded his hands in his lap, glancing to Jean’s stoic expression curiously. _He always looks like a criminal._ He allowed a smile to flicker onto his face, eyes seeking the woman before them.  
  
“Are you as brilliant now as you were then?” Ymir asked, leaned back in her seat. With one ankle resting on her knee and arms spread wide Armin felt that she was a little too open for someone that was kidnapping her fellows.  
  
“What does your organization plan to do with her?” Jean was the first to speak.  
  
“Organization?” Ymir laughed. “We’re hardly an _organization_.”  
  
 _This has taken a turn for the weird._ Armin furrowed his brows, ruffling his hair thoughtfully.

“We’re just a group of people who are trying to keep the world from crashing down,” Ymir folded her arms.  
  
“You’re lying,” Armin shook his head. “Who are you working with? Just Historia? How far in is the Reiss family?” _They know they need me for something. And I know they need Eren._  
  
“You sure have a lot of questions for a know-it-all,” Ymir’s voice was guarded. “What do you think?”  
  
He attempted to catch Jean’s eye, willing the other man to look at him -- to acknowledge that Armin was attempting to formulate a plan. Gaining access to these people was enough for the moment… he supposed. He would like more information going in, but he supposed beggars couldn’t be choosy.  
  
“So you have your memories?” Armin asked and Ymir snorted, spreading her legs.  
  
“Fickle things memories.” He wished he knew what that meant.  
  
“Where are you taking us? Specifically?” Jean shot off and Armin felt him jump when he placed his hand on his knee.  
  
“You’ll have to wait and see when we get there. I think that’s enough questions for now. Speak again and I’ll cut your tongues out.”  
  
 _This is going to be tricky._ Armin tapped his phone screen, wishing for just a moment to warn Mikasa.

_Unless they’ve already got her._

That wasn’t a thought he liked.

 

* * *

 

“Check the woods!”  
  
They’d been in the cupboard sized space for longer than Eren cared to count, pressed close and tight, and Levi’s breathing was beginning to lull him back to sleep.

_Why do they want us so badly?_

“Eren,” Levi’s lips against his ear drew his attention.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Lean back,” he shifted their weight as heavy footsteps passed overhead. “I’m going to go make sure it’s clear. Don’t move until I say your name.”  
  
He nodded, not wanting to let him go. _What will they do to us if they find us?_  
  
“They won’t catch us.” He ruffled his hair and pushed the trap door up, catching the rug before it could slap the ground. “Stay there.” A blade flickered in his hand, a knife that Eren hadn’t been aware of before.

 _Is this all because of me?_  
  
He couldn’t help but feel responsible with all the destruction going on around him.

_This feels familiar too… everyone else running around taking care of business while I… while I… hide..._

**_I can’t give up!_** He hesitated at the strange quality of his own mind at that moment.

This voice was rough and bitter and vicious, like a roughened knife scraping at the walls of his brain, cutting through his fear like flesh and flames.

This voice was unlike his own, yet familiar and sharp in the dim headache that now plucked at his spinal column like the strings of a guitar.

 ** _I can’t win if I don’t fight!_**  
  
“But I don’t need to fight now…” he said aloud. 

The trap door opening surprised him.  
  
“Eren?” He squinted into the light, reaching out to Levi’s offered hand. “I told you to stay quiet.”  
  
“I’m…” he looked back into the hole curiously. “I don’t think I like being left alone in the dark. Where are we going?”  
  
“Away. We need to get to Erwin and I can’t use my cellphone. Come on.” He threw Eren his coat and led him out of the house.  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“Your friend Bertholdt ratted us out, that’s what. This is the most goddamned ridiculous thing I’ve ever done. One day I’m comfortable on my couch and the next I’m dealing with _you_ travelling across an ocean. Then I’m running for my goddamned life from an outrageously tall guy and some weirdos we don’t know.” He grouched, but Eren had the feeling it was more for his benefit.  
  
The humming in his head had settled.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa couldn’t say this was the first time she’d been left holding the bag.

In fact most of the time she was the one left wondering what the hell had happened to her friends.

And of course this time couldn’t be an exception.

“Eren Jaeger if you don’t pick up the phone I’m going to cut you into little pieces and feed you to lions…” she grumbled into her phone screen, tapping the hang up button when she reached his voicemail yet again. “Armin and Jean aren’t here either… should I get on the plane?”  
  
 _Might be good if someone explained to me what was happening?_

Armin had called her, all big words and short explanations, but all she’d needed to know was that Eren might be in danger.

Her big brother might be in danger somewhere. Even if he could handle himself. Even if he had Levi with him.

 _There is safety in numbers._ She crushed her soda can in her hand and passed through security, praying that Armin and Jean would show their faces.

Praying that someone, anyone, would be waiting for her at the airport.

 

* * *

 

Dreams were always a trial now.

Sometimes they were dark and bloody. Sometimes they grew violent. And sometimes he dreamt of soft grass wafting in a summer breeze, and about the sweet, salty scent of the ocean, and of echoed voices in hallowed halls.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, jostling around in the back of a farm truck that Levi had arranged a ride with, head bumping against his lover’s shoulder. It felt like hours every time a second ticked by on Levi’s watch and all Eren could do was grunt at asked questions like a cave man and try to pull his mind out of the murk it had fallen into.  
  
“Eren are you listening?”  
  
“You were talking?” He lifted his head, eyes groggy. “Why’s it wet?”  
  
“It’s been drizzling for half an hour,” Levi answered. “This guy’s going to take us as far as he can but we’ll need to find out a way to get back to the city.”  
  
“What? Why aren’t we heading back? Where are we?” His senses sharpened.  
  
“I wanted to lead them away from us. They’ll never know when we double back, and then we can get some answers from Erwin.” He frowned.  
  
“Answers from Erwin… oxymoron…” Eren grumbled, jumping at the gentle fingers that curled into his long hair.  
  
“You need a haircut,” Levi told him. He looked tired, with grey eyes ringed with shadows and high undercut growing out just slightly. He always had long lashes, no matter when he was born.  
  
“Levi…” his name echoed in his mind, like the single drop of water before a storm.

A soft _plink_ of liquid onto a still, glassy surface.  
  
A still, glassy surface that he sank into so easily now.  
  
He could smell the blood and viscera, hot like flames in his lungs. He could see Levi flying through the air, whirling ever so elegantly each time his gear released its grip on Eren’s skin.

 _This isn’t right._  
  
He howled high, throwing his titan’s head back and calling thralls to him.  
  
 _What’s happening?_

Levi landed on his shoulder, his friends close behind. They trusted him. They trusted the strength of his power.

**_If I don’t fight I can’t win._ **

Sasha landed this time. Connie landed after her. Jean’s knees were safe from the titan’s jaws.

_This isn’t right._

Levi caught his shoulders, fear hot in his chest. “Eren?” His pupils were contracted and miniscule in the center of oceans of iris, lids wide and unblinking -- as if he were seeing a ghost.  
  
“Who are we fighting _?_ ” Eren’s lip twitched up into a snarl.  
  
“What? Eren! Snap out of it!” He shook him and the boy’s head lolled. “Eren!?” He caught his face in his hands and tried to force his eyes to focus.

_What’s… happening…_

_Why is Levi here?_   
  
**_Did I… die?_ **


End file.
